Toria Isquith: March 7, 2019
Toria Isquith
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Toria Isquith
Toria Isquith
This fall at the Student Activities Fair, the Pregnancy Resource Center of Addison County had a booth alongside other organizations from town. The booth included shower flip-flops, business cards, pamphlets on parenting classes and healthy relationships and a game of “STD Jeopardy” positioned out front. The booth was operated by the center’s director, Ms. Joanie Praamsma, who greeted students with a smile and offered her materials. When I introduced myself to Ms. Praamsma as the student who had previously written an article about her Crisis Pregnancy Center in The Middlebury Campus last fall, her smile disappeared. She considered my work an “attack” on her organization. She politely offered me her materials, and I took an example of each pamphlet before leaving the fair. Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs) often look like healthcare providers. When you drive by the Pregnancy Resource Center of Addison County on Route 7, you might mistake it for a legitimate women’s health resource. It has “free pregnancy testing” posted on large signs in front, and its website states its goal as “empowering women to make informed choices.” The information that CPCs provide, however, is biased, ill-informed, and designed to intimidate women who may be considering abortion. Last fall, a student — Kelsie Hoppes 18.5 — visited the center to conduct research on how CPCs operate. (Kelsie wrote a blog post about her visit to the local CPC, titled “I Went to a Fake Women’s Health Center, and Here’s What You Need to Know,” for the National Women’s Law Center.) When Kelsie suggested that a fictional friend might be considering an abortion, she was offered a pamphlet outlining the “risks” of the procedure. (You can see the pamphlet here). The pamphlet dramatically exaggerates the risks of abortion and suggests that abortion leads to increased risk of breast cancer and future infertility. Neither of these statements are supported by facts. Moreover, the center claims to offer post-abortion counseling to those struggling from the “physical and emotional trauma of abortion.” The center includes a description of “Post Abortion Stress Syndrome,” a fictitious mental disorder that the Diagnostic Standards Manual — used by psychologists to define and diagnose mental disorders — does not recognize as legitimate. In fact, a study from 2015 found that the majority of women who have abortions feel confident that their decision was the correct one, and do not struggle with emotional distress. While the Pregnancy Resource Center of Addison County’s website claims that it offers “evidence-based” information, it is clear that its information is ill-informed and biased, and that it intentionally associates abortion with medical risk and trauma. Following the Student Activities Fair, a group of students mobilized to take action against the local CPC. We met initially to establish our goals and to identify a tangible action that could be taken to protect our campus community from false information and threats to reproductive autonomy. The petition was proposed, with the stated goal of having the Pregnancy Resource Center of Addison County banned from advertising on campus or attending the Student Activities Fair. The language of the petition was then drafted, revised by students and staff, and shared online at go/stoplyingtowomen. At present, the petition has more than 240 signatures from faculty, staff, and concerned students; I am in contact with campus organizations about endorsing the petition. When I approached the Pregnancy Center’s booth at the student activities fair, I made no effort to misrepresent myself. I introduced myself as the person who had written an article about the center previously and expressed some concern that the center was advertising on campus. The Pregnancy Resource Center, however, intentionally misrepresented itself to the student body. Ms. Praamsma informed me that she did not bring any of the center’s pamphlets on abortion, despite its website clearly disseminating information about abortion. The local CPC intentionally withheld its biased information and marketed itself as a reproductive health resource for the Middlebury community. CPCs threaten reproductive autonomy. Women should not be scared away from a safe and frequently practiced procedure, and students should not be implicated in the spread of biased and ill-informed information. Sign our petition at go/stoplyingtowomen, and protect your peers’ ability to make informed decisions about their own bodies. Editor’s note: Victoria Isquith helped organize a petition to bar the Pregnancy Center of Addison County from participation in Middlebury College events. See our front page for news coverage of the petition.
In the era of the Trump regime, the politically inclined are eager to fight for abortion rights and affordable, government subsidized healthcare. The battle-cry is clear: “I stand with Planned Parenthood” stickers are on the back of laptops across campus and stuck on bumpers across the country. But is it enough? Is loud, unwavering support for abortion rights all that it takes to support women nationwide? And should abortion be the focus of all of our activism and attention? In our current class, “The Politics of Reproduction,” we were introduced to crisis pregnancy centers. A crisis pregnancy center — or CPC, for short — is a deceptive “resource” for pregnant people. These centers often situate themselves near abortion providers, sometimes buying property immediately next door or across the street. Women looking for abortion providers — and often women with appointments for abortions — will mistakenly enter CPCs, whose ambiguous logos and names suggest that they offer abortion resources. Misleading advertisements online and in print also draw women into CPCs under the false promise that they offer medical counsel. Once inside, women are inundated with false information skewed by religious biases. CPCs are designed to dissuade women from obtaining abortions, and they will do anything to reach this goal, including providing medically inaccurate information. Amy G. Bryant, a researcher from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, found that 80% of CPC websites surveyed contained false information about abortion. These falsehoods included supposed “risks” of the procedure- — increased risk of breast cancer, alcoholism and infertility, among others. The American Cancer Society disavows the link between abortion and breast cancer with the support of multiple studies. The National Health Service — the United Kingdom’s health care system — found no correlation between abortion and mental health problems or infertility. Bryant and her coauthors also found that 12 states had “Resource Directories” that they provided to women seeking abortion. Among the resources these states recommended — for abortion information and care — were CPCs. The battle for reproductive rights must include fighting both for abortion and against CPCs. Planned Parenthood stickers are not enough. So what can a student at Middlebury College do? How can we have an impact? In the liberal Green Mountain state, it’s easy to feel worlds away from the political agendas of political conservatives, including those who run CPCs. If you do a Google search for “pregnant in Middlebury, VT,” however, the first site to appear is the Pregnancy Resource Center of Addison County, a local CPC. Their website claims that they provide information on abortion, although the small print on the website states that “[t]his center does not offer abortions or abortion referrals.” The website does include information on what they call “post-abortion stress,” a fictional mental disorder that the DSM — a manual used by mental health providers to classify and diagnose disorders — does not acknowledge as legitimate, and that was created by anti-abortion activists. In progressive Vermont and on our own campus, women seeking accurate information may mistakenly visit this CPC and receive false information on their reproductive options and their bodies. Students in our course decided to take on this hypocrisy. In a series of translation projects, we are using information from course texts to create impactful projects — zines, art installations and board games, among other projects — to educate and inspire the Middlebury community. Many of us felt compelled to talk about CPCs, noting that even our most politically-conscious peers outside of the course were unaware of this insidious phenomenon. Anna Novak, a junior Geography major, devised a plan to map CPCs and abortion providers in Vermont to assist women looking for health care. I contacted every hospital and abortion clinic in the state to determine who provides abortions and the type of procedures offered. This information has been translated into an interactive map, which will be available on a website created by our peers — seniors Kelsie Hoppes, Lauren Schweppe and Kisha Karla. This website, reproductivehealthvt.wordpress.com, serves as a guide for individuals seeking reproductive health care services in Addison County, Vermont. This website educates viewers on what a CPC is and how to spot one and debunks many of their lies and biases. In addition, the website provides information on how and where to access an abortion locally, as well as information about the procedure itself. Our collaborative projects provide a resource that women in Vermont can use to learn about providers in Vermont, including contact information and provider location. Additionally, we hope that these projects can educate our community about the threat CPC’s pose to reproductive freedom, even in liberal Vermont. The website will be operational by December 18th. For more information on the website, as well as other projects from our course, please join us at the M Gallery on Wednesday, December 6th for student presentations. CPCs are deceptive; they have ambiguous names and websites, and their anti-abortion foundations are not immediately clear. They are designed to mislead women and dissuade them from a safe, common medical procedure. It is no longer enough to support Planned Parenthood when it is convenient. To support all women and to support reproductive autonomy, we have to emphatically oppose and demystify crisis pregnancy centers. It’s time for Middlebury students to actively oppose CPCs, and we can start in our very own town.