II. Other Erroneous
Allegations
Part 1
- Birthright and CAPSS
Arthur's report is replete with words like, "misinformation", "deception", "misleading", and "inaccurate" when she discusses what CPCs do, and the information they provide women. I counted at least 48 occurrences of these words in Arthur's report. Please keep this in mind as you continue to read my report.
Next I'd like to provide you with what some of what CAPSS and Birthright say about themselves on their websites, keeping in mind Arthur's use of these four words mentioned above to describe CPCs.
(These
values and services identified below from CAPSS and Birthright are
pretty standard across all crisis pregnancy centres. These two groups
– CAPSS and Birthright – make up the
bulk of the CPCs in Canada.)
This
is what CAPSS says about their member centres:
“CAPSS has 67 affiliated centres which includes satellite
centres.
Affiliation with CAPSS requires that they agree with our statement
of faith and our Christian values.
They also commit to the core position that Clients are served
without regard to race, colour, religion, creed, national origin,
age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, lifestyle or
other arbitrary circumstances.
We encourage centres to be consistent in all of their
communications. How they share their Christian foundation may vary
depending on each independent board and governing decision makers.
They [all centres] are advised to be very clear about this [that
they are not medical clinics].
If they do offer medical initiatives there is an expectation as
per #12 [in our Commitment of Care and Competence, CAPSS Core
Documents]:
“Medical services are provided in accordance with all applicable
laws, and in accordance with pertinent medical standards, under the
supervision and direction of a licensed physician.”
All affiliates identify that they do not refer for abortions. This
is done as part of signing the CAPSS Commitment of Care and
Competence.
See #6, #7 and #8 in our Commitment of Care and Competence:
6. Clients receive accurate information about pregnancy, fetal
development, lifestyle issues, and related concerns.
7. We do not offer, recommend or refer for abortions or
abortifacients, but are committed to offering accurate information
about abortion procedures and risks.
8.
All of our advertising and communication are truthful and honest and
accurately describe the services we offer.”
This
is what Birthright says about their 26 centres on their website:
Birthright services are always free, absolutely confidential, and
available to any woman regardless of age, race, religion, marital
status, or financial situation.
Our Services include:
Love,
hope, and encouragement
Friendship
and emotional support
Non-judgmental,
confidential help
Free
pregnancy tests
Maternity
and baby clothes
Referrals
to:
Information
on:
Pregnancy
and childbirth
Prenatal
development and care
Parenting
skills, child care, and child safety
Career
development and/or continuing education
Community
programs and/or social assistance
Adoption
Birthright will never
- ...try to scare or pressure a woman into a decision.
- ...show or discuss abortion pictures or videos.
- ...evangelize or lecture.
- ...picket or harass abortion clinics.
- ...lobby for legislative changes or engage in the public debate on abortion.
Honest, forthright, sincere, and transparent.
Part 2 - British
Columbia Humanist Association
On July 10, 2016, Arthur spoke to the BCHA about her recent report
that is the subject of this analysis.
“CPCs are anti-choice agencies that present themselves as
unbiased medical centres and counseling centres. They claim to
provide unbiased information...they’re not medical facilities at
all...they are generally run by untrained or very little trained
volunteers...they get some biblically trained training...they do
provide misleading and inaccurate information, pretty much all of
them if not on their website then in their brochures and in person.
They use ethically questionable counseling techniques...”
Arthur
also said this:
“There was very little research in Canada on CPCs...we looked
high and low for anything and everything on CPCs in Canada and we
didn’t come up with too much. One recent academic study on Ontario
CPCs, one I did on CPCs in BC, 2 in Quebec, 4 media investigations
exposés, I uncovered one very good unpublished thesis, now published
on our website. All show without exception that CPCs tend to
mislead.”
So
Arthur tells the BCHA that she searched “high and low” for
studies on CPCs. She stated similar sentiments in her report:
“Only a small number of studies or investigative reports have
been done on Canadian CPCs, but with similar results – all showing
that CPCs tend to mislead and deceive, and sometimes put women’s
health at risk. All known Canadian studies/reports, including media
exposés, are listed below by date….” (Source: Page 6 of
Arthur’s 2016 report)
What
Joyce fails to inform or acknowledge is that in follow-up stories on
all the reports below, all of them used limited sources or were
retracted, or found fraudulent (e.g. Arthur’s Exposing Crisis
Pregnancy Centres in BC, 2009) or penned by pro-choice writers
with a partial axe to grind.
Here are those studies she
refers to:
The Pretenders (CTV 2000; W-Five).
Exposing Crisis Pregnancy Centres in BC (Arthur 2009).
Deception Used in Counselling Women against Abortion (Smith
2010a; Toronto Star).
Are Anti-Choice Crisis Pregnancy Centres Targeting Female
Students on Ontario University
Campuses? (Tilley 2011).
Surrey charity gives dubious abortion advice: investigation
(Woodward 2012; CTV).
Phony Abortion Clinics In Canada Are Scaring Women with Lies
(Khandaker 2013a; VICE).
Enjeux éthiques de l’intervention auprès de femmes vivant
une grossesse imprévue au
Québec (Gonin et al. 2014).
Mieux comprendre les ressources conseil grossesse anti-choix
au Québec (FQPN 2014).
Toll free but not judgment free: evaluating postabortion
support services in Ontario (Laroche
and Foster 2015).
Notice
how every one of these studies/reports is derogatory towards CPCs, as
can easily be seen by their titles. What Arthur doesn’t tell
either the BCHA or the readers of her 2016 report is that there are
other writings out there that contradict these “known” writings.
Arthur doesn’t divulge that piece of information to her listeners
of the podcast, or to the readers of her report.
One
could say that Arthur is misleading, misinforming and deceiving both
her readers and the BCHA.
There
is at least one study that Arthur clearly doesn’t want anyone to
know about, including the BCHA. This 55-page work titled Crisis
Pregnancy Centres in British Columbia: A Respectful Rebuttal to a
Disrespectful Report is a very detailed report that thoroughly
rebuts allegations Arthur made in her 2009 report, including numerous
factual errors in that report.
In the rebuttal, it
says:
Here are just a few sample quotes by physicians
concerning the accuracy of the medical content in the CAPSS rebuttal
report, which was vetted by dozens of Canadian medical ethicists and
practitioners nationwide. For example:
“I have
reviewed ‘A Respectful Rebuttal to a Disrespectful Report’. I
find its content to be consistent with the medical literature.”
–
Dr. Dan Reilly, MD, FRCSC, MHSc (Bioethics)
“Women
and their partners deserve accurate information when faced with an
unplanned pregnancy. This comprehensive rebuttal helps to ensure
inaccuracies previously reported [by Joyce Arthur] in
‘Exposing Crisis Pregnancy Centres in British Columbia’ are
clarified and corrected.” –
Dr. Monica Langer, MD, FRCSC, Pediatric Surgeon
I can
assure the reader that Arthur did see this rebuttal report, because
CAPSS sent it to her. And just to be sure that Arthur did receive it,
CAPSS also sent it to all the leadership people associated with
Arthur’s own organization.
I
have also written extensively about Arthur’s 2009 report and its
allegations on my own blog. Apparently none of my writings showed up
either in Arthur’s “high and low” searches either:
Let
me tell you some things I learned about that 2009 report Arthur
wrote, the one CAPSS rebutted.
In
2004, Arthur received a grant from the federal government to write
that 2009 report called Exposing crisis pregnancy centres in BC.
I learned of this grant money through an Access to Information (ATIP)
request I made to the Status of Women Canada. One of the requirements
for receiving that $27,400 grant from Status of Women Canada was to
publicly acknowledge the grant. Arthur never did that.
And
this was not just an oversight on Arthur’s part. On her application
form for the grant money, under the heading called Declaration and
Undertaking, the applicant [who was Joyce Arthur] makes
the following promise:
"I am authorized by the organization to sign this application. I am taking responsibility to ensure that the organization agrees to the following declaration and undertaking...The organization agrees to publicly acknowledge any financial or other assistance provided by SWC." (emphasis added)
Arthur
didn’t publicly acknowledge the money like she promised to do:
deceptions and misinformation.
Part 3 – CAPSS rebuttal to Joyce Arthur’s 2009 report Exposing
Crisis Pregnancy Centres in BC
So let’s talk a little bit about the CAPSS rebuttal to Arthur’s
first report, the one she doesn’t tell BCHA or her readers about.
There
were many things CAPSS could have taken issue with in Arthur’s
dishonest 2009 report, but since time is finite, Brian Norton, a
board member of CAPSS, decided only to detail and refute eight of
what he called “serious allegations” of that report, along
with 12 less serious allegations of that report, and a bunch of
actual factual errors of that report (I have already covered Abortion
Procedures and Risks in section I).
In
the CAPSS rebuttal, Brian Norton asked Joyce Arthur a total of 17
times (seventeen):
“We respectfully challenge Ms. Arthur to publicly disclose [the allegation] and to provide any evidence of the same.”
I
asked Norton if Arthur ever responded to his many requests for
evidence of Arthur’s allegations in her 2009 report. Norton’s
response was:
“Ms.
Arthur did not. Not surprisingly. Knowing this would probably be the
case, we also individually forwarded the rebuttal to each of Joyce’s
organization’s board members. Not even an acknowledgment of
receiving our rebuttal. Not by anyone.”
I
suggest that the CAPSS rebuttal to Joyce Arthur’s many false
allegations about crisis pregnancy centres did, in fact, add to the
“body of knowledge” on CPCs. But Arthur withheld this information
from the BCHA and her readers.
In
the next section, I will identify only a couple of those allegations.
The reader will learn a lot about what CPCs actually do from reading
the CAPSS rebuttal in its entirety. I encourage anyone who wants to
know the truth about CPCs to do the same.
