Last week, the Voice featured the headline:† ìFMF claims local clinics misleading: asserts that pregnancy centers withhold facts from patients.” I found many of its arguments inaccurate.
The writer herself admits that the claim that ìfour pregnancy resource centers within five miles of The College of Wooster campus are, in fact, ëfakeí crisis pregnancy centers” is inaccurate. There is only one CPC within five miles of campus.
Furthermore, as with other CPCs, it openly states that it is not a medical facility and is a pro-life ministry.† However, even though it does not perform abortions, it does not force women into keeping their children, nor does it lie about the dangers of abortion.
An administrator (and member of Feminists for Life) at a CPC near Akron states that her organization ìin no way attempts to deceive or misinform young women in order that they follow any moral code.” She continues:
ìI am the first on board to want to stop any agency from deliberately giving out false information so as to deceive women. We do not pose as a health clinic; in fact, we explain quite openly that we are not a medical facility. We offer free pregnancy tests, which any woman can take for herself, and our clients are welcome to view their tests.”
I have witnessed the benefits of pregnancy centers through friends who have utilized its services. If a woman wants to keep her child, a CPC can be an amazing resource; in addition to material and emotional assistance, staff at a CPC also help the woman talk to the babyís father and her parents.† If a woman is unsure of whether she wants to keep her child, a CPC can be a positive option for her, too, providing support as she chooses what to do. In the end, of course, the woman decides where she will go.
I hope that those in the so-called ìpro-life” and ìpro-choice” camps can set targeted rhetoric aside and truthfully serve women.
Jacqueline Komos
JKomos11@wooster.edu