Fundagelicals are opening a new pregnancy disinformation center in Watertown:
Haven Center, a newly developing pregnancy center in Watertown, has chosen a location and begun accepting applications for their Executive Director.
For the past 8 months, a steering team has been working to open a pregnancy resource center in Watertown. Although there are currently 9 centers in South Dakota, there are none in northeast South Dakota.
“We need to make sure there are resources in our area to help guide women in unplanned pregnancies to choose life,” Michael Wallenmeyer, President of Haven Center Board of Directors said. “Our plan is to continue to walk with these women throughout their pregnancies and beyond, if desired.”
The nine-member committee recently announced their name: Haven Center; created a logo; and secured a location: 611 6th Street Southeast in Watertown.
“Our next step is to find an Executive Director,” Wallenmeyer said. “This person will be responsible for overseeing the administration, management, program development, strategic planning, marketing, fundraising, and community outreach for Haven Center” [Haven Center, press release, posted by Watertown Radio, 2023.04.12].
Wallenmeyer is senior pastor at Watertown’s New Life Church. The people helping Wallenmeyer organize this pregnancy disinformation center are the radical theocrats at South Dakota Right to Life:
While the Haven Center‘s job description for its hotly sought executive director purports to offer women help and education for “Whatever option they are considering, be it adoption, parenting or terminating the pregnancy,” the job description says suitable ED candidates must “Be a committed Christian who demonstrates a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord” and “Exhibit strong commitment and dedication to the pro-life position and sexual purity.”
Pregnancy resource centers, also known as crisis pregnancy centers and pregnancy support centers, are well-known religiously backed propaganda peddlers:
As of 2019, there are 2537 CPCs across the United States. The vast majority are operated by one of two major evangelical religious organizations: Care Net International and Heartbeat International.3 In contrast, there are 780 clinics providing abortion services in the country.4 In the most extreme case, Missouri has one single abortion facility and 69 CPCs.
In a study examining 254 websites representing 348 CPCs, 80% of them were found to provide at least one false or misleading piece of information.1 For example, CPCs strategically place advertisements aimed at pregnant women on search engine results for abortion-related terms. Their ads strive to display the appearance of abortion-providing medical clinics and are frequently placed on billboards and buses near abortion clinics.5 In addition, CPCs often intentionally occupy buildings near abortion-providing clinics,5as in the case of the clinic where Dr. Bernard works in Indianapolis. CPCs have also developed initiatives specifically targeting communities of color, a population that faces significant barriers, such as financial inequity, shortage of health care providers, and lack of health insurance. By building centers in these areas, CPCs present themselves as often the only available option for reproductive health services.5
CPCs are intentionally advertised as comprehensive medical facilities with licensed clinical professionals despite offering only select services and being largely staffed by volunteers. CPCs, as nonmedical entities, are not held to the same inspection, safety, and regulation requirements as medical facilities. In fact, CPCs have no such requirements at all.1 Inside CPCs, staff often use manipulative and coercive tactics on unsuspecting women: some volunteers wear white coats despite having no medical training, they fail to disclose that they are not a medical facility, and they express judgment toward clients about their decisions to pursue abortion or contraception. They offer ultrasound services, which they may not be licensed to interpret, for the purpose of using fetal images to deter women from abortion. They quote falsehoods linking abortion to adverse mental health sequelae, breast cancer, and future infertility6[Carly Polcyn, Sarah Swiezy, Leah Genn, Pavithra Wickramage, Neha Sidiqqui, Candise Johnson, Pooja Nair, Caitlin Bernard, and Velvet Miller, “Truth and Transparency in Crisis Pregnancy Centers,” Womens Health Reports (New Rochelle), July 2020].
This misinformation harms women:
In addition to the purposefully deceptive nature and explicit anti-abortion objectives of CPCs, engagement with CPCs may also lead to direct harms for both pregnant and non-pregnant women. Individuals seeking pregnancy confirmation at CPCs not only experience delays in accessing abortion care when desired,23,43but in the case of desired pregnancies, may also experience delayed entry into prenatal care or delayed recognition of pregnancy complications or medical conditions as a result of visiting a non-licensed clinic.23,43 A recent survey study conducted with 607 CPCs in 9 states found that only 5% directly offered prenatal care, while only 40% provided referrals for prenatal care.17 The same study found that only 26% and 16% of CPCs have a registered nurse or physician on staff, respectively, which underscores that individuals attending CPCs are not receiving medical care, and potentially dangerous diagnoses such as ectopic pregnancy may be missed. Thus, rather than helping refer to early prenatal care, which is associated with improved maternal and neonatal outcomes, or providing tangible resources such as assisting individuals to obtain pregnancy Medicaid benefits as applicable, CPCs distract and divert pregnant women from the legitimate medical system to promote their own ideologic ends.44,45
For patients who are considering pregnancy termination, CPCs not only misrepresent the health-risks of abortion but also may intentionally lie to their clients by reporting incorrect gestational ages of their pregnancies.46 At best, this tactic forces an increase in second-trimester abortions, which are harder to obtain, more expensive, and less safe than abortions in the first trimester.47 At worst, it prevents patients from accessing abortion altogether, a situation that will become more common as abortion becomes more difficult to access, thus robbing them of their reproductive autonomy [Mellisa N. Montoya, Colleen Judge-Golden, and Jonas J. Swartz, “The Problems with Crisis Pregnancy Centers: Reviewing the Literature and Identifying New Directions for Future Research,” International Journal of Women’s Health, 2022.06.08].
If lying to and oppressing women is your thing, then the Haven Center fundies have a gig for you in Watertown.
7. Republican politicians drive their anti-woman crusade to raise campaign dollars so ending reproductive rights in red states is Balkanizing women’s health care.
12. One fifth of all pregnancies end in miscarriage or as some would call God working in mysterious ways but when a person chooses to terminate a pregnancy the creator doesn’t condone that decision? How does that work?
On the other side, it looks like Big Pharma is going to get into the abortion debate. After Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s ruling to reverse FDA approval for a drug, the drug companies now see their bottom line in danger. Their concern is that a political judge can overrule the scientific process of drug approval (and wipe out profit earned from investment). The danger of Kacsmaryl’s ruling, and the danger of these pregnancy centers is that they both jump to misinformation/disinformation under the guise of science to justify religious actions.
If one wants to take a moral position, take it! Don’t muddy the waters with pseudo-science to disguise that moral stance.
p.s. I believe I recognize another State Representative in matching shirt next to Rep. Deutsch.
O, the hypocrisy for the drug companies is they funded the political campaigns of the very US senators who nominated bad judge Kacsmaryk. Big pharma has their panties in a bunch.
Talk about wanting a do-over.
https://prospect.org/power/2023-04-12-pharma-cash-conservative-court-majority/
“The pharmaceutical industry is very upset. Right-wing federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s ruling overturning the Food and Drug Administration’s 23-year-old approval of abortion medication mifepristone could severely damage companies’ ability to develop and market prescription drugs. Companies could spend a fortune getting a drug approved, only to see the courts take issue with the process, and the money washed down the drain. To them, it’s the worst thing a court ruling can be: bad for business.”
Perhaps the current fundagelical thought process is: “I know I am morally right in what I am doing if I have to lie to people to accomplish my goals?” After all that seems to be a big part of conservative tactics these days to gain power, as that party’s current top polling candidate for President reportedly made something like 30573 documented false or misleading claims over his 4 years as President (WAPO).
https://www.ethicssage.com/2018/04/do-the-ends-justify-the-means.html
Like I have said before, you are totally responsible for devil worshipping when you take away another person’s choice, even if you don’t even believe in the devil. Even though there isn’t even such thing as the devil, they are still hip-deep in devil worship. This is evil. No matter how holy you think you are, SD Right to Life. If you have to engage in trickery, like Satan, than you are worshipping Satan. Get real, you demonic tyrants. Truly good people respect women.
Who do you trust? Women or government? Who do you trust? Gotta choose one.
O:
Ah yes, Byron Callies. A bastion of Christian morality. (Sarcasm) I wonder if he’d be so holier than thou if people knew about his extramarital activities..
The description does say sex is pure. However is exhibiting strong commitment and dedication to the pro life position mean missionary? Will a description do or is a photo necessary? Any other positions ok?
What makes this group an utter joke is their slothful sin in how they accept the gun deaths of kids, how they do nothing about the 4,000 child sexual abuse cases in South Dakota per year! Their inaction to stop our kids from being shot and raped and exploited, or to help those who have, proves they do not give a spit about South Dakota’s innocent children. That is why I curse them.
Proud of these stats, ya counterfeit Xians? Keep smiling in your photos so hell will recognize you when you get there.
https://www.cwla.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/South-Dakota-Fact-Sheet-2022.pdf
The crazier Republicans are the more money they can raise.
5. “Pro-life” is simply code for white people breeding. The extreme white wing of the Republican Party is driving the abolition of women’s rights because they’re wedded to the Great Replacement Hypothesis. African-Americans terminate pregnancies at about the same per capita rate as white people do but don’t take their jobs. Latinas, however, have fewer abortions per capita but the extreme white wing laments it’s hemorrhaging jobs to Latinos.
Yup….five men, two women on the Board of Directors of a program serving women. Wouldn’t want women with their hands on the tiller.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9189146/
Crisis preg center lies.
bearcreekbat
Machiavelli’s quote begs—or at least raises—the question he doesn’t address, namely, just why is it is necessary to appear to have the quality of being religious. Clearly it isn’t necessary for everyone as not everyone is seduced by such appearances alone—which doesn’t keep appearances from semiotic use (be they projecting the appearance of religion, or Noem on a horse, or even wearing clothes whether designer or not).
It isn’t men alone who judge by the eye, of course. The copulatory dance of the female stickleback is triggered by the sight of a color patch on the male’s back. Barring the presence of a male, a colored paper cutout will do the trick. Female pigeons reach sexual maturity and ovulate only when in the presence of other members of their species; barring that, placing a mirror in the cage of an isolated female in which she can view herself will do the trick. https://www.jstor.org/stable/82149
Jacques Lacan for one has elaborated extensively on the captivating power of the image in which we find ourselves alienated. For him, the Imaginary register of alienating identifications (the world of the ego) is but one of three ‘registers,’ the other two being the Symbolic and the Real. When one enters the world of language (the Other of the Symbolic register) the Imaginary is dialectized by language and becomes what it was all along, nothing but a decoy meant to seduce in which one would be otherwise trapped/alienated until the Symbolic is brought to bear on the Imaginary. Of course, some seem never to enter the world of the speaking being or do so in a very limited way, and there are various clinical terms for this.
The third register of the Real is the remainder of language which language cannot exhaust, try as it will.
Much more could be said regarding naïve, unquestioned belief, as well as taboos against questioning belief (doubt) which reinforce belief, as well as the attraction that religion has for some in equipping them with beliefs used life a talismanic fetish to ward off perceived evils …. Such matters, of course, are not the aim if even in the skill set of a Machiavellian.
DaveFN, much of your analysis is beyond my comprehension, although it seems to me that one possible answer to your question:
would be to consider the context of the quote, i.e., how threatening was religion during the Spanish Inquisition era. I have read that at that time those who did not create the appearance of being religious were putting their very lives at risk.
Interestingly, the lies so prevalent today more often seem designed not to save the liar’s life, but to divide people into conflicting groups so those that spread lies can obtain money or power or both.
I say that the pro-life stance has worked to shed its “religious” — even moral stance and language. Far more if its modern rhetoric revolves around pseudoscience and disprovable biology. I get the pro-life argument as a purely moral stance on the sanctity of life and definition of when it begins. More often (outside its own echo chamber), pro-life advocates push their cause through misleading or false science claims: Judge Kacsmaryk’s ruling invalidates scientific testing to eliminate FDA approval for a drug — it does not say “abortion is wrong so shall stop.” Fetal heartbeat restrictive language doesn’t say, “abortion is wrong and shall stop”; it culls from arbitrary, disputed biology to define life. The strength of the moral argument is cloaked in the dregs of deniable justifications. It is weak tea. It takes the position that people need to be tricked into pro-life actions. It fools nobody (who was not already enraptured). I find it a foolish rhetorical strategy.
bearcreekbat
“I have read that at that time those who did not create the appearance of being religious were putting their very lives at risk.”
Did not create the appearance of being Catholic is what you meant to say, no? One couldn’t merely give the appearance of being religious, but had to give the appearance of being the “right kind” of religious. I wonder if their were more nuanced religious litmus tests amongst the Catholics themselves, not to mention the extent that money paid to the church may have counted for being religious.
“Rome renewed its own Inquisition in 1542 when Pope Paul III created the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition to combat Protestant heresy. This Inquisition is best known for putting Galileo on trial in 1633.
In 1545, the Spanish Index was created, a list of European books considered heretical and forbidden in Spain, based on the Roman Inquisition’s own Index Librorum Prohibitorum. In other nods to Rome’s concerns, the Spanish Inquisition focused on the rising population of Spanish Protestants in the 1550s.
In 1556, Philip II ascended the Spanish throne. He had previously brought the Roman Inquisition to the Netherlands, where Lutherans were hunted down and burned at the stake.
As Spain expanded into the Americas, so did the Inquisition, established in Mexico in 1570. In 1574, Lutherans were burned at the stake there, and the Inquisition came to Peru, where Protestants were likewise tortured and burned alive.
In 1580 Spain and Portugal ruled jointly by the Spanish crown and began rounding up and slaughtering Jews that had fled Spain. Philip II also renewed hostilities against the Moors, who revolted and found themselves either killed or sold into slavery.
Philip II died in 1598 and his son, Philip III, dealt with the Muslim uprising by banishing them. From 1609 to 1615, 150,000 Muslims who had converted to Catholicism were forced out of Spain.
By the mid-1600s the Inquisition and Catholic dominance had become such an oppressive fact of daily life in Spanish territories that Protestants avoided those places altogether.”
https://www.history.com/topics/religion/inquisition#inquisition-in-the-new-world
Under its surface, the “when life begins” theory is quite revealing. The choice of fertilization as the starting point for defining “life” worthy of protection is as arbitrary as choosing the another point in the process, such as the creation of both the sperm cell and the egg. In all cases there is one form or another of provable “life.” Indeed, sperm cells possess the ability to independently move and search out the egg. And according to Scientific American even viruses are yet a form of “life” in the ongoing web of life.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-viruses-alive-2004/
So if one tries to justify the “right to life” view based on an argument about when “life” begins, it soon becomes clear that only certain forms of “life” are actually valued, not “life” itself. Thus for the typical “right to life” argument the “life” that begins with a fertilized egg and contiues through all stages of pregnancy is the principal “life” that they believe should be protected by the State. Indeed, this is the current state of South Dakota law with its statutory definition of “unborn child.” This means that under this viewpoint “life” is not sacred, but only a single preferred form of “life” is considered sacred.
Just as many, if not most, South Dakotan right to lifers thus place a higher value on the “life” of a fertilized egg than on the “life” of a living sperm cell, an unfertilized egg, or a virus, these same folks place a higher value on the “life” of a fertilized egg than the “life” of a living breathing woman, as well as the “lives” of living breathing men. This is evidenced by South Dakota’s homicide statutes, which have repeatedly been shown to protect fertilized eggs so that anyone that aids in the intentional descruction of that egg by an unauthorized abortion, at any stage of a pregnancy, may be sentenced to to be killed by the State. (The legal analysis and statutory basis for this fact as been posted previously on DFP and need not be repeated here. If anyone wants further info please ask Cory for my email address and I will provide the statutory cites for you, along with the statutory and case law analysis).
So there you have it. While O correctly recognizes that “the pro-life argument” on the surface purports to depend on a definition of when “life” begins and on “the sanctity of life,” the truth is that this position has little if anyything at all to do with either when science tells us that actual “life” begins, or with the sanctity of “life” itself. Rather, the unspoken premise of that argument focuses only on the individual personal preferences of its proponents, rather than any scientific or actual moral respect for “life.” The proponents simply personally prefer to defend the fertilized egg until birth and have no interest in protecting the lives of the women involved or other adults that may see the world differently, nor protecting other forms of life the proponents either deny exist or deem less worthy.
https://www.vox.com/policy/2023/4/13/23679164/abortion-pill-reversal-5th-circuit-ruling
Kansas is one state to watch in the coming weeks. The Republican-controlled state legislature there approved a bill last week that would require medical facilities to post signs saying that an abortion started with a dose of mifepristone can be reversed before a dose of misoprostol is given, even though national physician groups have said that these claims “are not based on science and do not meet clinical standards.” Doctors would be required to tell their patients the same information directly.
magats are willing to kill women by lying to them and ignoring standards of science from the FDA.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/04/15/matthew-kacsmaryk-law-review/
Withheld important evidence about a critical response to Obama administration’s LGBTQ policies authored by Kacsmaryck alone and later dropped his name for 2 colleagues., This happened whiule he had a WH interview scheduled for his federal seat.
I found no paywall in this article, still…..
Mandatory vasectomy for all men at 13 years old. Freeze sperm as backup if reversal doesn’t work. Reverse vasectomy when a woman agrees to carrying his child. Once pregnancy achieved vasectomy again. No pregnancy or child will be unwanted. Medical care will be in the interest of the woman and the child. Abortion used if fetal abnormalities prevent viability of child or the life of mother is endangered by carrying pregnancy longer.. As I read back through this, it sounds draconian. The Republicans will love it.
You’ve gotta give pro-lifers credit in that at least they appear to understand the scientific basis of fertilization rather than attributing it to some water sprite.
But what are they going to do about the thousands if not hundreds of thousands of destroyed embryos every year from in vitro fertilization in the case of genetic embryo screening which chooses a single non-genetically impaired embryo to implant and discards the remaining embryos which are a 50/50 mix of embryos that are the result of fertilization? Are such medical strategies and those who employ them the next to come under attack?
So much for the ole “life begins at conception/fertilization” rationale.
As far as that goes, the most common complication in pregnancy affecting approximately 1 million women in the United States annually is first trimester miscarriage. Mifepristone (followed by treatment with misoprostol) is a legitimate medical use that has nothing to do with abortion.
So, ban mifepristone entirely? That’s really throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Texass disgraced AG Paxton is suing a California outfit for daring tell the truth about crisis pregnancy centers, claiming it violates Texass fair practice law or some such b s.
https://tinyurl.com/73ywabea