Prenatal aid offered at care centers

Dear Editor,

In the Wednesday, Oct. 28, News Record article “Deceptive pregnancy centers flushed out,” Carly Tamborski falls prey to a common ideology that conflates women’s rights and reproductive health with an abortion agenda. She believes that an organization is deceptive simply because, in the services they provide to pregnant women, they exclude abortions and abortion referrals — as if abortion is somehow the cornerstone of all prenatal assistance.

As Holly Tomlinson of the Feminist Majority Foundation is quoted in the article, “These places pose as comprehensive women’s health clinics, when they actually don’t offer abortion services, contraception or referrals.” Both women have defined priority services in a way that purposefully excludes the work of pregnancy care centers and denigrates the kinds of assistance that such centers offer.

While Planned Parenthood and other such organizations have certainly cornered the market when it comes to abortion, they do little to nothing when it comes to assisting pregnant women who decide to give life.

Simply compare the services offered by a pregnancy care center like Pregnancy Center West to those offered by Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio. In addition to aiding women in receiving free prenatal care, Pregnancy Center West services include free parenting classes, material assistance such as free diapers and formula, free doula (birth and labor coach) services and referrals for clients who are considering adoption or who need a safe place to reside during or after their pregnancy.

With its focus on contraception and abortion, Planned Parenthood neglects these fundamental, life-saving services. In fact, according to Planned Parenthood’s own annual report, Planned Parenthood performed 305,310 abortion procedures in 2007, while only 4,912 customers were referred to adoption agencies in that same year. Parenting classes and material assistance are not even among the services listed on its Web site.

The real deception here is the marketing of abortion and contraception as the only services that matter and the pretense that organizations that peddle these products and procedures are benign and impartial. A fourth-year University of Cincinnati nursing student, Ashley Bowser’s assumption that “Since these facilities [pregnancy care centers] are pro-life, I’m sure some pump up the facts or exaggerate them” is all too common.

Fortunately, the unexaggerated facts speak for themselves when it comes to the help pregnancy care centers offer — without receiving the federal tax dollars or charging the fees to clients like Planned Parenthood does.

The facts also speak for themselves when it comes to abortion: Whether presented under the deceptive disguises of health care, choice or reproductive rights, there is no denying the truth that this act ends the life of a unique human being. It’s time to end the deception and start giving women the truth as well as the help they need to empower them to choose life.

Rachel Renner
Director of Outreach
Pregnancy Center West Inc.