Pro-Life Tactic: Faux Clinics

Seen at Tales of Tikvah, quoting Planned Parenthood:

An Indiana mother recently accompanied her daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend to one of Indiana’s Planned Parenthood clinics, but they unwittingly walked into a so-called “crisis pregnancy center” run by an anti-abortion group, one that shared a parking lot with the real Planned Parenthood clinic and was designed expressly to lure Planned Parenthood patients and deceive them.

The group took down the girl’s confidential personal information and told her to come back for her appointment, which they said would be in their “other office” (the real Planned Parenthood office nearby). When she arrived for her appointment, not only did the Planned Parenthood staff have no record of her, but the police were there. The “crisis pregnancy center” had called them, claiming that a minor was being forced to have an abortion against her will.

The “crisis pregnancy center” staff then proceeded to wage a campaign of intimidation and harassment over the following days, showing up at the girl’s home and calling her father’s workplace. Our clinic director reports that the girl was “scared to death to leave her house.” They even went to her school and urged classmates to pressure her not to have an abortion.

Dudes, that ain’t right.

While I can empathize with pro-life folks wanting to discourage abortions and make women considering abortions aware of alternatives… deception and harassment are uncalled for.

The Planned Parenthood article mentions that several of these places are also being funded by tax dollars, although that’s a claim that I cannot verify. Even if the tactics being reported weren’t so reprehensible, with the national budget deficit running so high, is this really an appropriate use of funds? I mean, the mothers who will be saddled with the expense of bearing a child, and the child that you’re trying to bring into the world by avoiding an abortion are going to be burdened by the massive debt the country is wracking up now.