plus 4, Pro Lifers support teenage pregnancy? - Democratic Underground.com

Pro Lifers support teenage pregnancy? - Democratic Underground.com
'Rogue' pregnancy agencies criticised - Irish Times
Sunshine Dizon belies pregnancy rumor - ABS-CBN
Serious Pregnancy Complication Detected With MRI - YAHOO!
What It Costs to End a Life-Threatening Pregnancy - Momlogic.com

Pro Lifers support teenage pregnancy? - Democratic Underground.com

Posted: 01 Dec 2009 06:41 PM PST

When Jordan arrived, a counselor began asking whether she'd considered adoption and talking about the poverty rates of single mothers. Over five counseling sessions, she convinced Jordan that adoption was a win-win situation: Jordan wouldn't "have death on her hands," her bills would be paid and the baby would go to a family of her choosing in an open adoption. She suggested Jordan move into one of Bethany's "shepherding family" homes, away from the influence of family and friends.

Crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs), the nonprofit pregnancy-testing facilities set up by antiabortion groups to dissuade women from having abortions, have become fixtures of the antiabortion landscape, buttressed by an estimated $60 million in federal abstinence and marriage-promotion funds. The National Abortion Federation estimates that as many as 4,000 CPCs operate in the United States, often using deceptive tactics like posing as abortion providers and showing women graphic antiabortion films. While there is growing awareness of how CPCs hinder abortion access, the centers have a broader agenda that is less well known: they seek not only to induce women to "choose life" but to choose adoption, either by offering adoption services themselves, as in Bethany's case, or by referring women to Christian adoption agencies. Far more than other adoption agencies, conservative Christian agencies demonstrate a pattern and history of coercing women to relinquish their children.

Bethany guided Jordan through the Medicaid application process and in April moved her in with home-schooling parents outside Myrtle Beach. There, according to Jordan, the family referred to her as one of the agency's "birth mothers"--a term adoption agencies use for relinquishing mothers that many adoption reform advocates reject--although she hadn't yet agreed to adoption. "I felt like a walking uterus for the agency," says Jordan.

Jordan was isolated in the shepherding family's house; her only social contact was with the agency, which called her a "saint" for continuing her pregnancy but asked her to consider "what's best for the baby." "They come on really prolife: look at the baby, look at its heartbeat, don't kill it. Then, once you say you won't kill it, they ask, What can you give it? You have nothing to offer, but here's a family that goes on a cruise every year."

Jordan was given scrapbooks full of letters and photos from hopeful adoptive parents hoping to stand out among the estimated 150 couples for every available baby. Today the "birthmother letters" are on Bethany's website: 500 couples who pay $14,500 to $25,500 for a domestic infant adoption, vying for mothers' attention with profuse praise of their "selflessness" and descriptions of the lifestyle they can offer.

Jordan selected a couple, and when she went into labor, they attended the birth, along with her counselor and shepherding mother. The next day, the counselor said that fully open adoptions weren't legal in South Carolina, so Jordan wouldn't receive identifying information on the adoptive parents. Jordan cried all day and didn't think she could relinquish the baby. She called her shepherding parents and asked if she could bring the baby home. They refused, chastising Jordan sharply. The counselor told the couple Jordan was having second thoughts and brought them, sobbing, into her recovery room. The counselor warned Jordan that if she persisted, she'd end up homeless and lose the baby anyway.

"My options were to leave the hospital walking, with no money," says Jordan. "Or here's a couple with Pottery Barn furniture. You sacrifice yourself, not knowing it will leave an impact on you and your child for life."

The next morning, Jordan was rushed through signing relinquishment papers by a busy, on-duty nurse serving as notary public. As soon as she'd signed, the couple left with the baby, and Jordan was taken home without being discharged. The shepherding family was celebrating and asked why Jordan wouldn't stop crying. Five days later, she used her last $50 to buy a Greyhound ticket to Greenville, where she struggled for weeks to reach a Bethany post-adoption counselor as her milk came in and she rapidly lost more than fifty pounds in her grief.

When Jordan called Bethany's statewide headquarters one night, her shepherding mother answered, responding coldly to Jordan's lament. "You're the one who spread your legs and got pregnant out of wedlock," she told Jordan. "You have no right to grieve for this baby."

This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

'Rogue' pregnancy agencies criticised - Irish Times

Posted: 01 Dec 2009 04:47 PM PST

The Irish Times - Wednesday, December 2, 2009KITTY HOLLAND

IT WAS questionable whether some State-funded crisis pregnancy agencies should receive money from the Government, an Oireachtas committee was told yesterday.

Senator Ronan Mullen was speaking at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children as it discussed a presentation from a pro-choice group, Choice Ireland, calling for the regulations to outlaw so-called "rogue" pregnancy agencies.

Though not a member of the committee, he had asked to make a contribution to its discussion.

There was broad agreement from committee members that a regulatory framework should be introduced to regulate crisis pregnancy counselling services, and that "rogue" agencies were undesirable.

Sinead Ahern, spokeswoman for Choice Ireland, said the principal aim of such agencies was to prevent a woman with a crisis pregnancy from having an abortion. Though they advertised themselves as mainstream pregnancy counselling services, they used "lies and intimidation" as well as graphic videos and images of foetal remains which caused considerable distress to "very vulnerable women".

She said that during her investigations into such "agencies", in which she posed as a woman with a crisis pregnancy, she was told that if she had an abortion she would be more likely to abuse any children she did go on to have.

This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Sunshine Dizon belies pregnancy rumor - ABS-CBN

Posted: 01 Dec 2009 08:22 PM PST

Sunshine Dizon belies pregnancy rumor

abs-cbnNEWS.com | 12/02/2009 12:10 PM

Printer-friendly version | Send to friend | Share your views

MANILA - After months of silence, award-winning young actress Sunshine Dizon has finally shot down the pregnancy rumor that is stalking her.

She denied speculation that she went to the United States purportedly to hide her pregnancy. She divulged that she never left the country, but stayed in Pampanga for a long period of time due to an illness.

"It just so happened that I got sick… Every year ganoon ang tsismis. Everybody is pregnant… It's kind of sad because it's (rumor) really part of the industry. If you don't like that, then get out of the business," she said in an interview after the 23rd PMPC Star Awards for TV awarding ceremonies.

She also denied that she and her rumored non-celebrity boyfriend, reportedly the brother of actress Tanya Garcia, got hitched in secret.

"Hindi po ako [nagpakasal] kasi sana po ay ay mayaman na ako. Kasi kung mag-aasawa ako, sisiguraduhin ko na mayaman [ang papakasalan ko]," Dizon jokingly said.

Dizon, who received a best single performance by an actress award for her role in "Obra Presents: Butch," stressed that she is single and open to dating.

The rumors have surfaced after the actress turned down two projects in another network. -SNN: Showbiz News Ngayon

This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Serious Pregnancy Complication Detected With MRI - YAHOO!

Posted: 01 Dec 2009 04:04 PM PST

slick head buzzed up: Obama: More troops for Afghanistan, with exit plan (AP)

14 seconds ago 2009-12-01T20:35:03-08:00

This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

What It Costs to End a Life-Threatening Pregnancy - Momlogic.com

Posted: 01 Dec 2009 03:35 PM PST

Joe Davidson for the Washington Post: D.J. Feldman was 11 weeks pregnant last year when she learned that her child had anencephaly, a fetal defect that left the baby with almost no brain. It is always fatal.

Feldman, a 41-year-old federal lawyer, and her husband had been trying for two years to have a baby. Sadly, her doctor "made it very clear I wasn't to continue this pregnancy," she said.

An abortion was medically necessary. She had little choice.

But after the jolt of the diagnosis and the emotional pain of the procedure, Feldman was in for another shock -- sticker shock. She thought her health insurance policy through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) would cover the $9,000 cost of the abortion. It didn't.

For Feldman, unlike many women who have abortion insurance coverage through private-sector employers, abortion coverage provided through her employer -- the U.S. government -- is illegal. The law says that "no funds . . . shall be available to pay for an abortion" under FEHBP. Exceptions are made for pregnancies that are the result of rape or incest, or that endanger the mother's life.

Feldman's case is instructive. Congress is considering a ban, like the one in federal employee health plans, against federal funding of abortions as part of the effort to reform the nation's porous health insurance system. After hot debate last month, the House approved the Stupak-Pitts amendment, which would prohibit abortion coverage in government-subsidized health insurance, with exceptions for rape, incest and the mother's health.

Feldman's health was in jeopardy. The minority of babies with anencephaly that are carried to term -- dying shortly after birth -- cause complications such as "dysfunctional labor and postpartum hemorrhage, which can increase the risk for the mother," Feldman's doctor wrote in a letter to her insurance company.

The doctor warned that the complications for a woman of Feldman's maternal age from giving birth to a child with anencephaly "are especially serious . . . and could be life threatening."

Despite the doctor's plea, the Office of Personnel Management refused to make Blue Cross/Blue Shield pay.

"The fetal anomaly presented no medical danger to you, the mother," OPM wrote to Feldman. "Consequently, we cannot direct the [insurance] Plan to provide benefits for the services in dispute."

Feldman was able to negotiate the fee down from the $8,898 she was billed as an individual, to the $5,000 the Blues would have paid. Federal and insurance company officials do not discuss individual cases.

For privacy reasons, Feldman, who lives in the D.C. area, doesn't want her full name or agency printed. She has lobbied against the Stupak amendment and the law that places restrictions on the health coverage of federal employees. Those restrictions also apply to others who use federally funded health programs, including poor women on Medicaid, patients in military hospitals and Native Americans who use the Indian Health Service. Federal law even prohibits the D.C government from using its local funds for abortions, though the House has voted to lift that ban.

"People don't want their tax dollars to pay for abortion," Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said in an interview, citing a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll showing that 61 percent of those surveyed support a ban against using public subsidies for abortion coverage. "Many pro-choice members [of Congress] support no tax dollars for abortion," he added.

Stupak said that individuals would be able to buy supplemental abortion policies. But that coverage isn't always available. The Government Employees Health Association, better known as GEHA, for example, doesn't sell supplemental abortion policies.

With Democrats running the White House and Congress, abortion rights advocates thought that now would be the time to change the law. "This has been the first time in eight years to have the punishing restrictions removed from federal employees," said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights.

She and others are encouraged because the ban has not been included in a Senate appropriations bill, though it remains in similar House legislation.

"Abortion is basic health care for women, and federal employees should have coverage," said Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation.

But the Stupak amendment has been a blow to abortion rights forces. It's a clear signal that the House, at least, is in no mood to mess with the bans against federal funding.

Read more stories moms are talking about.

This content has passed through fivefilters.org.