Pro-life pregnancy center leaders in Canada are responding to a new claim by pro-abortion activist Joyce Arthur that the centers deceive pregnant women, a report which AdvoKate Life and Education Services executive director Jared White dismisses as “about as scientific as a restaurant menu.”
The report, released by Arthur’s Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, accuses pregnancy centers of hiding their religious identities, promoting abstinence, dispensing medical advice without the proper regulations, and misleading women on abortion risks.
On Monday, White told LifeSiteNews that “only the news media would take something like this seriously,” and abortion facilities, “which I do not believe are telling their patients the whole truth about abortion’s impacts,” are the ones who need investigating.
“A pregnancy centre may not say on its website that it will not refer people for an abortion or contraception,” White continued, “but I can guarantee you that once the young women are inside our centre they find that out right away.” He also noted that ARCC did not talk to women about their experiences with pregnancy centers, and stood by the pro-abstinence message, which studies have shown is highly effective.
Canadian Association of Pregnancy Support Services executive director Dr. Laura Lewis added that the sixty-plus pregnancy centers under her organization’s umbrella are upfront about the disputed nature of the link between abortion and breast cancer: “We say there is a possible risk of breast cancer, with an asterisk leading to a footnote that advises this is highly controversial.”
In addition, the report claims almost half of Canadian pregnancy centers “mentioned negative psychological consequences, primarily in the context of ‘Postabortion Syndrome’, which is not medically recognized,” but the specific question also referred more generally to negative psychological consequences of abortion in addition to “Postabortion Syndrome” — so in truth, 80% of the pregnancy centers did not actually present the consequences as a specific, named syndrome.
As Live Action News has previously covered, there is extensive medical evidence indicating a link between abortion and breast cancer, as well as harmful long-term effects on a woman’s mental health. American abortion advocates often attack pro-life pregnancy centers on similar grounds, claims which Live Action has also extensively refuted.
