Pregnancy resource centers misleading teenagers

Jul 18 2006

According to a U.S. congressman women are being given false and misleading information at some federally funded pregnancy resource centers.

It seems some advisors at these centres are telling pregnant teenagers that abortion raises the risk of breast cancer infertility and mental illness.

This came to light when Democratic staff on the House of Representatives Government Reform Committee who called up some faith-based pregnancy resource centers received incorrect advice aimed at discouraging abortion.

Henry Waxman, the leading Democrat on the committee, asked staff to check on pregnancy crisis centers, which were given $24 million in federal funding between 2001 and 2005.

Congressional aides, posing as pregnant 17-year-olds, called 25 pregnancy centers that have received grants from the Compassion Capital Fund.

Henry Waxman, a California Democratic representative says that twenty of the 23 centers reached by the investigators (87 percent) provided false or misleading information about the health effects of abortion.

A report issued by Democrats on the House Government Reform Committee says that the callers were given a mine of misinformation with one being told that an abortion would 'affect the milk developing in her breasts' and would increase the risk of breast cancer by 80 percent.

The Institute of Medicine and the National Cancer Institute have discounted any link between abortion and breast cancer.

The callers were also told, contrary to research and medical consensus, that a standard, first-trimester abortion would raise the risk of infertility, that the psychological effects of abortion are severe, long-lasting, and common says Waxman.

There are more than 4,000 pregnancy clinics nationwide but only a small number receive any federal funding, mainly for promoting sexual abstinence.

Very little federal government money is specifically given for counseling operations, but according to Waxman's staff 25 centers received "capacity building grants" and therefore says Waxman should be held accountable for the information they dispense.

The report says pregnancy resource centers are virtually always pro-life organizations who aim to persuade teenagers and women with unplanned pregnancies to choose motherhood or adoption.

Waxman says regardless of the division in America over the issue of abortion, no one should support misleading teenagers about basic medical facts.

Waxman says it is wrong to pour millions of federal dollars into organizations that are providing false health information to vulnerable teenagers.

A spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services Department, which funds the centers, could not immediately be reached for comment.