Many of you have probably seen the “evil CPC” story that’s been circulating recently. Christina at Real Choice is one of several pro-lifers who have pointed out that it has all the marks of an urban legend in that it lacks specific details. The story doesn’t even tell us which of the three Planned Parenthood abortion clinics in Indiana this purported incident stemmed from. That said, it sure looks as if this episode is fabricated. Here’s the story, which i’mnotsorry.net reports “has been circulating through PP and NARAL’s channels, as an illustration of a proposed law regarding ‘crisis pregnancy centers'”:
An Indiana mother recently accompanied her daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend to one of Indiana’s Planned Parenthood clinics, but they unwittingly walked into a “crisis pregnancy center†run by an anti-abortion group — one that shared a parking lot with the real Planned Parenthood clinic, and was designed expressly to lure Planned Parenthood patients and deceive them. The group took down the girl’s confidential personal information and told her to come back for her appointment, which they said would be in their “other office†(the real Planned Parenthood office nearby). When she arrived for her appointment, not only did the Planned Parenthood staff have no record of her, but the police were there — the “crisis pregnancy center†had called them, claiming that a minor was being forced to have an abortion against her will. The “crisis pregnancy center†staff then proceeded to wage a campaign of intimidation and harassment over the following days, showing up at the girl’s home and calling her father’s workplace. Our clinic director reports that she was “scared to death to leave her house.†They even went to her school and urged classmates to pressure her not to have an abortion.
It’s this last sentence in particular that raised a red flag for me. They went to her school? One wonders how they would have done this. It’s next to impossible for a stranger to enter a school building, as nearly all schools’ doors are locked from the outside. Perhaps “They even went to her school…” means that the CPC workers waited outside the school for the girl to leave at the end of the school day. But how could they have known who this girl’s “classmates” were? Or did they just go up to students at random (who, for all the CPC workers knew, didn’t even know who this girl was) and “pressure” them to tell her not to have an abortion? Until I see convincing evidence to the contrary, I think a healthy dose of skepticism is called for here.
