Lying Liars Telling Lies
By I’m very familiar with the lies of the “pro-life” movement. Whenever I’m wandering the interwebs and encounter a patch of tall grass, I deliberately walk through it in case a Forced Birthizard appears. I’ve swum alongside the Cinibar Islands, fought MissingNo. and acquired infinite masterballs. Online, I’m ready for these bastards.
But I was not ready for them to show up at my school, pretending to give a shit about helping pregnant women.
Their sign said “Free Pregnancy Tests” and their banner read “Real Choices.” So of course, I immediately knew they were a crisis pregnancy center.
I approached them to get some of their literature to see exactly how shameless the lies would be. The woman at the table regaled me with a story of how the woman’s sister had died of an abortion because they’d “left a piece of it inside of her.” I pointed out that, while tragic, if that happened recently, say in 2008, her sister would have been one of six women – and that’s not “out of a hundred thousand” as maternal mortality from pregnancy is counted, but merely six TOTAL nationwide – to die of a legal abortion. Furthermore, if she was having it taken out “in pieces” then it was a very late term (and therefore uncommon) abortion, and that probably other things were going wrong with the pregnancy. She certainly would have faced a higher risk of dying during childbirth.
She insisted that taking the fetus out “in pieces” is actually something they do in ALL abortions, and that doctors leaving fetus pieces in women is “what happens in abortion mills.”
Then I read a pamphlet that had this page:
They’re actually advising women against getting a chemical abortion (the pamphlet itself is entitled, “The Abortion Pill”) if they have an ectopic pregnancy, which is potentially fatal bullshit “advice.” Methotrexate is the standard of care for ectopic pregnancies, as it terminates the pregnancy, does not require an incision, and spares the woman her fertility.
If anyone has any advice for me about how I can get these liars for Jesus booted off my (public university in California) campus, please let me know in comments. A diversity of clubs/opinion is important, but surely we can draw the line at dispensing dangerous and dishonest medical advice while pretending to be some sort of obstetrics clinic. These idiots could get someone killed.
Bonus: When they invited me to come to their meeting, I said I had to go to an event at the LGBT center. She replied, “OH… Well you know, we have lots of lesbians that use our services.”
Yea. I bet. Lesbians are known for their high rates of unintended pregnancies.
Bonus #2:
“How do you feel about contraception?”
“Oh we’re in favor of all kinds of contraception.”
“Oh yea?”
“Well I mean, I don’t think you should hormonal pills or take the morning after pill either.”
Well, I’m not an expert on these legal matters, but I’ve picked up a fair bit from reading Dispatches from the Culture Wars for quite a while. So, take what I say with a grain of salt.
First of all, there are a few relevant questions I have to ask: How and where are they set up? Is this something that anyone can take advantage of to set up a booth (or whatever) of their own? Is this something covered under the school’s regulations?
If it’s covered under the school rules, read them through and see if there’s anything that can be used against them (for instance, if the rules ban lying to students). If that is the case, I’d send an e-mail to someone at the university in charge of these matters, pointing out these violations, and requesting that something be done. If they don’t do anything, move on to bigger guns. I’d recommend contacting the Freedom From Religion Foundation about this. They have a lot of experience with similar incidents in school (mostly with direct imposition of religion, though this particular movement is more covert), and they’ll likely be willing to help you draft a more formal letter to send to the school. This often does wonders for correcting things.
But if none of the above works, or if this group isn’t violating any university rules, then you aren’t quite out of luck. The first thing I would recommend is to set up an effort to counter their disinformation. Find some like-minded people on campus, and apply for a booth (preferably right next to theirs) on “The truth about those guys to the right of us.” If they won’t let you do this, you can go back to sending them a letter in legalese about discriminatory behavior, demanding that they allow your speech as well, as otherwise they’re discriminating based on viewpoint.
“We have lots of lesbians that use our services.”
I lol’d.
(I’m SO glad I have wine, reading this. It’s been a pretty awful week for forced-birther news.)
I felt physically ill when I read the recommendation against medical abortion in the case of ectopic pregnancy. Someone close to me is, in all probability, alive and healthy because she had methotrexate available to her. I wish you the very best of luck in getting these people off your campus.