By Dave Andrusko

More than once--actually more than 100 times--I have wondered what really is behind the Abortion Industry's all-out, never-ending, let's-crush-them-to-smithereens offensive against Crisis Pregnancy Centers, also known as pregnancy resource centers or women helping centers. This came to mind, yet again, as the New York City Council cranks up its machinery to go after CPCs.

Councilwoman Jessica Lappin introduced a bill Tuesday that would require CPCs "to provide disclosure if they did not provide abortions, FDA-approved contraception or referrals for the services," according to the local CBS affiliate. "The crisis pregnancy centers would also be required to display signs at the entrance of their facilities as well as in waiting rooms and advertisements if they did not provide the services or have a licensed medical professional on site."

And "Clinics that violate the full disclosure provisions could be fined, or closed for five days if they have three or more violations within two years."

The hypocrisy, double-dealing, and double-standard on display is mind-blogging, even by the usual pro-abortion standards.

(By the way, did I mention that the "source" for the various criticisms of CPCs is NARAL New York? Can't get a more unbiased information source than that.)

For starters, if CPCs have to scream out that they don't do abortions, why shouldn't Planned Parenthood have to shout out that it doesn't do adoptions? For two reasons, according to Susan Dominus, writing in the New York Times.

First, "In fact, Planned Parenthood, which has long supported adoption, has seen some of its chapters recently enhance their own adoption counseling." Really?

Adoption is a late addition to PPFA's "services" and on the decline. A PPFA Fact Sheet that came out recently revealed that while the number of abortions had jumped a whopping 6% in one year, the number of adoption referrals had dropped by half--from 4,912 in 2007 to 2,405 in 2008. (See www.nrlc.org/News_and_Views/Sept10/nv091510.html)

There is a second reason, according to Dominus, the logic of which is so torturous it's hard to know where to begin. "But some conflicted women might imagine that a place so closely associated with abortion rights could not possibly be the right place to hash out the decision -- an assumption of polarization seems to kick in reflexively," she wrote. "Based on facts, not just feelings, the crisis pregnancy centers are clearly not an unbiased place for a woman to sort through that choice, and the sooner she knows it, the better."

Okay, everyone knows PPFA is up to its elbows in the blood of unborn babies, so a woman with a crisis pregnancy quite correctly understands that she's not about to get impartial advice. (They shouldn't feel that way, according to Dominus, whose opinion of PPFA's beneficence knows no bounds.) But CPCs--well, we know what THEY are about and that must be told to women early and often.

Same old, same old. Heads, PPFA wins, tails, CPCs lose.

But there's more, much more. One CPC "boldly announces its agenda in red," Dominus writes. "Fighting for life in NYC -- the abortion capital of America." But, wait. What if a sign has both words "Abortion" and "Alternatives"--and the latter word isn't as large as the former? It's the dreaded "signage" gap.

Worse yet, what if the CPC is near an abortion clinic? [If only those pesky anti-choicers could be zoned out of the area.] Signage gap + proximity + unwillingness to perform or refer for abortions= ambiguities=deception=laws to stifle the CPC's First Amendment rights.

To close the sale, the hammer pro-abortionists inevitably unload is that some CPCs make the true point that there is an association between an induced abortion and an increased risk in breast cancer (the ABC link). This is the ultimate inconvenient truth, which the National Cancer Institute insists is not true. With the NCI's imprimatur, pro-abortionists derisively dismiss the ABC link as "junk science."

When asked to comment Barbara Meara wondered, "And should the CPCs also put up a sign that they don't provide breakfast, lunch and dinner? And are the abortion clinics going to put up signs that they don't tell women their babies have a beating heart at 18 to 21 days, their brainwaves can be recorded at 42 days, fingerprints at 8 weeks are the same as they will be at 8, 18, or 80, and the babies can feel pain at 20 weeks?'

Meara, Chairman of the New York State RTL Committee, reminded me how there is no turning back from an abortion.

"The woman who might be persuaded by a Crisis Pregnancy Center urging her to have her baby can go home, think about it, and go to the abortion clinic the next day. " By contrast, "The woman who goes to an abortion clinic and kills her baby cannot change her mind tomorrow."

To return to my original question, in one sense PPFA is no different than any other gigantic business trying to drive its "competitors" out of the market. They seek a monopoly.

At the same time PPFA is trying to oust anything and any one that gets its way, it is also busy cost-cutting. Already a $1 billion dollar enterprise, PPFA is closing unprofitable centers and building massive edifices that will increase its already huge market share and profit margins.

But there is a more basic explanation. If your real agenda has nothing to do with "helping women," but guaranteeing that any woman who is ambivalent about her pregnancy ends that pregnancy, it is an affront when some little mom and pop shop with 1/1,000,00,000 of your resources tries to help these desperate women find "a better way" and a threat to your sense of entitlement and moral rectitude.

Let's hope if the New York City Council enacts this law, it is vigorously challenged in court.

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