How Despicable Internet Pregnancy Crisis Pages Lie To Desperate Women
Earlier today I wrote a piece about Yahoo Answers questions about sexuality and how dismal sex education is in most places. In writing that I stumbled across a slew of anti-choice “pregnancy crisis” pages designed specifically to trick unsuspecting, desperate women into reading them and getting misleading or outright false information. I will be honest, I had no idea these pages existed until today.
I can’t say that I’m surprised. I think we’re all familiar with brick and mortar pregnancy crisis centers and how they mislead pregnant women, but in case you’re not, here is how it goes. You find yourself pregnant and panic. Looking for guidance you search look through the phone book or search the Internet and come across a deceptively labeled “pregnancy resource center,” where you head off to, expecting information on all your choices, including abortion. But instead of getting real info, you’re inundated with pressure to either continue your pregnancy or put your child up for adoption. The one I went to when I was pregnant with my oldest child gave me baby clothes and told me god wanted me to have children.
Internet pregnancy crisis pages are even more insidious. Unlike pregnancy crisis centers that have trouble leaving god out of the equation, these pages masquerade as pro choice websites that give out sexual health information. The worst offender is the ironically named ProChoice.com. At first glance it looks like your typical health and wellness site, similar to Livestrong.com, but when you delve inside it’s anything but.
There are three sections, labeled “pregnancy,” “adoption” and finally “abortion.” The pregnancy section has a subsection that asks the question “Can I do this?” to which the site replies:
“There are very few parents that don’t ask this very question. It might surprise you but, most children are not planned. Is anyone really that ready? All children are different having varying traits many things about your child will be a surprise. Life would be dull if there were no surprises and there would be no real victory without some difficulty.”
That’s it. No information on stress, mental health or family support. The “What does it cost?” subsection is even worse:
“Believe it or not the little known secret is that being a parent costs you very little and everything. Little in the sense that; while many reports might tell you it is very expensive (like only someone rich should have kids), if you are struggling there are many public and private resources out there to help you.”
My accountant would beg to differ, if I could afford one. The rest of the information contained in the pregnancy and adoption sections range from less-than-helpful to ridiculous, but that’s nothing compared to the abortion section.
When you click on the “What is abortion” subsection, you’re immediately faced with a photo of a fetus. Subtlety is not a language whomever put this tripe together speaks, obviously. It almost comes off as badly written satire. Here are a few fun examples:
The worst is the “How is it performed” subsection. You can tell that this shining light of humanity tried SO hard to use grown up, medical sounding language. But she fails miserably. Not only that, but she repeatedly uses language that is specifically designed to make the reader think of their fetus as an already-viable child and most of the information is either misleading or completely false.
I will be honest, I couldn’t bring myself to click on the photo links, but I’m sure we can all guess what they contain.
I wish this site was the only example of such trickery, but sadly it’s not. There are plenty of other examples. This particular site is obviously trying to catch women who mistype the legitimate ProChoice.org, which seems to be the modus operandi for many similar anti-choice zealots.
What’s infuriating is how deceptive and shady these “activists” are in their dealings. If you truly believe in something and think it’s right, why the need to lie and mislead? You don’t see pro-choice activists creating bullshit pro-life sites to try to force abortion information down women’s throats.
If you’re a pregnant woman looking for information, be leery of any site that use language such as “baby” or “child” instead of fetus, or talks about cutting, poisoning or murder. Abortion is NOT murder. Not legally, and not morally. A great resource is the Pro Choice Action Network. If a woman is pregnant and worried, the last thing she needs are anti-choice crusaders trying to force their agenda on her.
(Photos: igor.stevanovic/Shutterstock/ProChoice.com)
