Scarleteen

So a lot of people are probably wondering what the CPC trick is. if you've been there you know- if you haven't, here's to hoping you never are. Many places list themselves as pro-choice or women's rights places, but when you get in the door you find they're focused in making women choose adoption or parenting and don't have a problem with making them feel bad if that's not the choice they make.

After being tricked myself, and thanks to a TON of support from people who actually do care about me and my right to choose, I'm working past that experience. More than anything I'm hoping no one else has had to- but this is a place if you have or are worried you may and need help findings safe place.

Wow that is truly scary. I am sorry to hear that you went through that Stephanie. I'm glad to read you are working past the experience.

I have not heard of this until now, thank you for sharing this information with us!

For more information on CPCs in general, should anyone want it, here's a starting place here on the site: http://www.scarleteen.com/article/abuse ... m_not_help

I found this informational video by VICE on CPCs recently, if anybody is interested in learning more: http://youtu.be/g-ex4Q-z-is

I personally think these are scary places when you're only trying to seek help.

They're very scary. You know, I was just in Vancouver, WA, recently for a conference, and in just driving around to find places to shop for food, saw three of these places within a five to ten mile radius. And while I've been in all of this long enough to recognize the kind of coded language they use to make clear what they are, it is very, very easy to see how most people would not miss it. How, in other words, good they are at the intentional manipulations they do to get people in somewhere where most people heading in absolutely would not want to be.

Ugh, the local buses have ads that say "Worried you might be pregnant? Scared? Lost? Looking for help?" or something, and it's a fricking Birthright ad. It says that they provide free pregnancy tests, too, to sucker more vulnerable people in. Yay :/ I always have the strong urge to deface those ads. I hate hate hate CPCs and really I think they shouldn't be allowed to advertise on public transport. I mean, I think they shouldn't be allowed to hide their intentions at all, but there you go... Luckily I know of the local AMAAAAZING abortion clinic, who are so so supportive and just so awesome, so I know to always go to them in the case of an unwanted pregnancy.

There's some UK-specific information from Brook on CPCs, if anyone wants it: http://www.brook.org.uk/images/brook/pr ... iFINAL.pdf

I think they're scary, too. I remember being in my late teens and looking in the local phone book at pregnancy advice places - didn't need one, was looking at what was out there in case I ever did - and I remember very clearly that I thought the CPC places were the good ones and that the places that I now know are trustworthy, like the BPAS, were the bad ones. I wanted somewhere unbiased that would simply take care of me, listen to me, and take care of what I wanted, and I thought that was the CPCs, and I would've deliberately gone to a CPC if I'd needed a pregnancy service. That didn't happen in a vacuum: I'm a bit sponge-like with information, and I'd absorbed a lot of ambient information about how abortion was wrong and that abortion services were biased towards abortion and would try to lean their clients towards choosing abortion because that would make them more money. (For clarity, about abortion services: that's untrue.) I'd been exposed to very little pro-choice/pro-reproductive rights or medically accurate information, so the pool of absorbed information I had to draw on was horribly biased.

I get cold shivers at the thought I'd've ended up at a CPC if I'd become pregnant and about what might have happened as a result of that, and more angry than I have words to express that there of course were and are other "me"s who do become pregnant and do choose CPCs when all they wanted was unbiased, knowledgeable, sensitive care.

Looking back, I can honestly say that so e of their words stuck. In some ways I feel like I should have known better- I worked wit ST a while and I taught sex ed. But then I realize just how good they are at suckering ppl in when they get someone with my background. And then the horror hits of what about those ppl that didn't have anyone like I did to turn to after.

Wow, I didn't realise these places existed in the UK too - that's sad.