12th & Delaware: Every Day A Battle Is Born

You might want to skip this post (about abortion). Need help? In New Zealand, you can call Lifeline on 0800 543 354 or Youthline on 0800 37 66 33.

12th & Delaware documentary poster

Click here to watch the documentary. You can make the video full-screen to avoid the advert.

The two sides of the abortion debate in America literally face one another in this documentary from filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady.

In Fort Pierce, Florida, a women’s heath care center is located at the corner of 12th and Delaware. On the same corner, across the street, is another women’s heath care center.

However, the two centers are not in the same business; one provides abortions along with a variety of other health services, while the other primarily offers counseling to women considering abortion, urging them to keep their babies.

In 12th and Delaware, Ewing and Grady offer a look inside both offices, as pro-life counselors give women a mixture of concern and disinformation about terminating their pregnancies and the pro-choice medical staff struggles to work under the frequent threat of violence against them.

The film also examines the handful of protesters who stand outside the abortion clinic, confronting both patients and staff as they enter and exit. (via)

In Florida there are two street corners, both 12th & Delaware. An abortion clinic, run by a husband and wife, and an anti-abortion crisis pregnancy care center, run by Father Tom sit across the street from each other.

“We still get women coming in who think they’re going there [to the abortion clinic].”

Women aren’t sure which one they’re calling or visiting. The pregnancy care center does nothing to clarify that they don’t actually offer abortions. What they do offer is “counseling” to actively try to persuade women from choosing abortion, graphic photographs, free ultrasounds (with ‘HI DADDY!’ typed in the corner of the print out), models of fetuses, DVDs of anti-abortion propaganda playing in the waiting room, flip books of the abortion process, graphic DVDs of the procedure, and brochures stating that abortion causes breast cancer.

The abortion clinic claims the pregnancy care center gives incorrect information to women–among spreading myths about abortion and medical disinformation, they say the center tells women they are earlier in their pregnancy than they actually are, so if they think they have a few weeks to make a decision and then decide to have an abortion they either won’t be able to get an one or will have to travel to another state to get one.

Choice quotes from one of the crisis pregnancy center counselors

“She’s abortion-minded.”

“She had an abortion in December. She might do it again.”

[to ultrasound technician (likely the only person in the building with any sort of medical training)] “Maybe we can get a heartbeat.”

”Yus, yus, yus, two [“saved”] in one day.”

The efforts the pregnancy counselors go to push their agenda have no bounds

A woman comes in. She already has two kids. She says she wants what is best for herself and the children she already has. Her position is entirely understandable.

The counselor goes to her office and sends an email out to a prayer mailing list: “Please pray for Victoria, she is in our counseling room at this very moment, and her only option is abortion…”

She buys McDonald’s for the woman, thinking that if the woman leaves before having an ultrasound that she might “lose her”. They eat together.

She tells the woman that her verbally abusive partner might change if she has this baby.

“I’m gonna step outside and make a phone call.”

“[on phone] Man this bitch is getting on my fucking nerve.”

 

The crew follow-up with a 15-year-old who was convinced she should continue with her pregnancy by the care center. She tells the crew that she tried to end the pregnancy herself. She hopes that everything will turn out alright.

The protestors and the doctors

The same counselor from above makes her way across the street to talk to the protesters. They’re friends. She shares news from an anti-abortion website.

She comes out a second time after the police are called and defends the protesters’ use of graphic signs.

The doctors who perform abortions are picked up by the clinic owner, and, with a sheet covering their heads, are taken into the clinic’s closed garage to protect their identities.

“I’ve discovered, thanks through God that I know where the owner of the abortion clinic meets the abortionists.”

One of the protesters from outside the abortion clinic leads the documentary crew to a Wal-Mart parking lot. He’s found where the doctors and clinic owner meet and swap cars. He, as well as others try to find out names and addresses of the abortion doctors. They want to out the doctors, using methods like displaying their photo on billboards; and visiting their homes, churches, and workplaces, to deter them from performing abortions.

The abortion clinic

“I just wanna make sure that this is definitely what you need to do, not want to do, nobody ever wants to do this… It’s your decision only.”

In strong contrast with the pregnancy care center, the abortion clinic is truly about choice.

“Yeah… they got a replacement and that doctor was killed too.”

The main fear is that they will lose their doctors. Their abortionists are in their 50s and 60s. “Where is the next doctor coming from” if a doctor retires or is outed?

Watch an interview with the co-directors of the documentary, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady.

Here’s a new Tumblr sharing New Zealand women’s stories of abortion.

Click here to watch the documentary. You can make the video full-screen to avoid the advert.

Family First’s Fair and Balanced Sex/Abortion Youth Poll

Votes

Family First ordered a poll (something they subsequently left out of their press release) on young people’s views on sex and abortion, and apparently most of them agree with Family First.

The poll

The poll was conducted by Curia, David Farrar of Kiwiblog’s market research company. The sample size was 600 15 to 21-year-olds from 6,000 nationwide phone numbers.

“Based on this sample of 600 respondents, the maximum sampling error (for a result of 50%) is +/- 4.1%, at the 95% confidence level.”

Of course, it isn’t actually independent at all because Family First got to choose the wording of the question and options.

Sex education

Do you think sex education in schools should teach values, abstinence and consequences such as pregnancy, or just teach safe sex?

  • Values, abstinence and consequences – 34%
  • Just safe sex – 19%
  • Both – 42%
  • Unsure/refuse – 5%

Safe sex gets ‘just’ put in front of it, but values, abstinence and consequences doesn’t. Did the 34% know they were choosing just values, abstinence and consequences?

Chief executive of Family Planning, Jackie Edmond points out that no organization actually advocates safe sex by itself.

Family First’s spin on this result:

“This is a direct rebuke from young people to the ‘use a condom’ and ‘everyone’s doing it’ messages being pushed by groups like Family Planning, AIDS Foundation and Rainbow Youth,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

Except, at least 61% support education involving condoms. And ‘everyone’s doing it’ isn’t a message safe sex groups send.

Parental consent for abortion

Provided it won’t put the girl in physical danger, should parents be told if their school-age daughter is pregnant and considering getting an abortion?

  • Yes – 59%
  • No – 34%
  • Unsure/refuse – 7%

Without a crystal ball there’s really no way to be sure that it “won’t put the girl in physical danger”. Why not trust the girl’s own judgment? The question suggests that physical danger is the only significant danger. There’s other considerations to be made. Emotional and financial harm, or being chucked out of home are all significant, but none come under physical danger.

“Parental notification laws in Texas, Michigan, Minnesota, and other US states have seen a drop in both the pregnancy rate and the teen abortion rate – a win-win situation for all concerned.”

I’m guessing that quite a few of these abortions have just moved to states with more liberal abortion laws.

Abortion in general

Do you believe an unborn child or foetus has a right to be born?

  • Yes – 56%
  • No – 28%
  • Unsure/refuse – 16%

Slightly more young women than young men agreed – 58% to 55%.

The conclusion based on gender is misleading. Slightly more young women than young men disagreed too, 28% to 27%.

 

Sex education, parental notification, abortion poll results (doc)

Here is Family First’s article on the results (if anything, you should read it to see the words cock, wank, orgasm and clitoris censored with asterisks).

Image credit: Democracy International

What Would Jesus Do?

On Friday I went to the Canterbury A&P Show. The usual mix of anti-abortion and Christian stalls were there.

Pro-choicer

Voice for Life

This is the description the anti-abortion people (Voice for Life – Canterbury) gave the Show organizers:

“Recapture the wonder: an educational stall focusing on the amazing development of the child in the womb using pictures and life sized models.”

Read: ABORTION IS MURDERRRRRRRR!!@@@@

Opposing viewpoints

The lack of stalls with balancing viewpoints (pro-abortion1 or agnostic/atheist) concerns me. This isn’t the case of having the choice of whether to buy a tractor or not. It’s “buy this tractor or burn in hell for eternity”. This is what was in one of the booklets we were given (Are You a Ewe?) from the Christian stall:

“Rebellion against God deserves death and punishment forever in hell.”

They also had Atheism is definitely wrong leaflets.

Agnostics, atheists and pro-abortionists: where you at?

1: I’m pro-abortion (and not pro-choice) because all woman should have access to abortion services. That doesn’t mean I want to abort everyone’s children.

Image credit: Steve Rhodes

Secret Abortions!

You might want to skip this post (about abortion). Need help? In New Zealand, you can call Lifeline on 0800 543 354 or Youthline on 0800 37 66 33.

AloneA Tauranga schoolgirl had an abortion “arranged” by a school counselor without her parents’ knowledge. Her mum, angry at not being informed, spoke to the media. This promoted calls for girls under 16 to require parental consent to go through with an abortion. Under the Care of Children Act there is no age restriction to give consent to an abortion. In 2004, then opposition MP Judith Collins tried to change this, but it didn’t pass.

Youthline rightly says that everyone should have access to confidential health services regardless of their age. They say that it can’t be assumed that the family home is a safe and loving place. They stress the importance of youth having a strong support network, which may include a counselor who they can talk to in confidence. There’s a risk that vulnerable youth won’t reach out if they fear that their parents will be told. Talking with a counselor about a pregnancy doesn’t mean that a girl won’t talk with her parents about it, she might just need some reassurance first. Not wanting her parents involved doesn’t mean a girl is going it alone. Maybe she feels more comfortable talking with a friend’s mother, the father’s parents or other extended family and that should be okay.

Deborah Coddington says:

“I’ve been on a board of trustees of a large Auckland school and I’ve seen how some girls were treated by their parents when it was thought they had brought shame on the family. They were physically punished, sometimes to the extent CYFS had to be notified.”

Maybe those calling for this change have a bigger target in mind—discouraging abortions all together. If the parents are informed, maybe the hope is that they will put a stop to the abortion.

Garth George cites a dubious study by Dr Priscilla Coleman that claims there is a link between abortion and mental health:

…a thoroughly scientific study in 2006 by Dr Priscilla Coleman, a research psychologist at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, refuted a long-standing contention that teenagers are better able to handle an abortion than dealing with an unplanned pregnancy.

The study found that adolescent girls who had an abortion were five times more likely to seek help for psychological and emotional problems than those who kept their babies.

The study also found that teenagers who had abortions instead of carrying the pregnancy to term were also more than three times more likely to report subsequent trouble sleeping, and nine times more likely to report subsequent drug use.

Dr Coleman pointed out that, while having a child as a teen might be problematic, “the risks of terminating seem to be even more pronounced”.

“The scientific evidence is now strong and compelling. Abortion poses more risks to women than giving birth.”

Trying to replicate Dr Coleman’s results, researchers concluded:

Because of the potential for confounding, published research claiming to find relations between abortion and poor mental health indicators should be subjected to scrutiny and reanalysis. Using the same data and conducting the same analyses as CCSR (2009), we found that their results were not replicable, nor did our numbers approach theirs in the case of 15 mental health disorders. Moreover, we found little support for the abortion-as-trauma framework. Instead, our findings suggest that structural, psychological, and sociodemographic risk factors associated with both having an abortion and having poor mental health drive a relationship between abortion and mental health. Therefore, policy, practice, and research should focus on addressing the correlates of having mental health problems, such as violence and prior mental health problems.

We were unable to reproduce the most basic tabulations of Coleman and colleagues,” Steinberg said in a statement released with the paper. “Moreover, their findings were logically inconsistent with other published research — for example, they found higher rates of depression in the last month than other studies found during respondents’ entire lifetimes. This suggests that the results were substantially inflated.” (via)

“…the TFMHA [Task Force on Mental Health and Abortion] reviewed no evidence sufficient to support the claim that an observed association between abortion history and mental health was caused by the abortion per se, as opposed to other factors.” (via)

What life will an unwanted baby have? What is its future? What is the mother’s future? How likely is it that a cycle of teen pregnancy will start?

It’s up to parents to keep lines of nonjudgmental communication open with their children, to be involved with them and to talk with them, but parents should be grateful that their children don’t have to rely on their peers for advice and that there are professionals accessible to their children that they can talk with about things that they don’t feel like they can talk with their parents about.

Image credit: Tanya Little