I’m a member of a local homeschooling group that claims to be secular. The purpose of the group is to organize activities for the members in our county. They don’t allow political posts, though they do allow posts about activities that are organized or take place in churches. They sometimes allow off-topic posts from groups like the Holistic Mom’s Network, which may include meetings for vaccination information, for instance. Here’s part of the wording from the charter:

The purpose of the group is to provide community-based educational and social actvities for our children and networking opportunities for homeschooling families. Members of the group take turns arranging activities. This is an inclusive group. Homeschooling families from all faiths, backgrounds and teaching styles are welcome. We share a commitment to offering our children an excellent home-based education. Please no SPAM, flaming or political messages.

This past week, the moderator of the group posted an off-topic advertisement for free sonograms at some sort of clinic in New Jersey. Something about the wording made me suspicious (“we have a unique opportunity to train a second nurse in our ultrasound ministry. If you are pregnant or know someone who is, would you consider coming in for a free ultrasound?”). What I heck is an ultrasound ministry? So I looked it up and found out that it is a Crisis Pregnancy Center or “CPC”. So basically, the moderator posted an advertisement to provide free ultrasounds to pregnant women that want to allow untrained nurses to experiment on their fetuses. What’s worse is that I feel pretty confident that most of the pregnant homeschoolers reading the message will have no idea that when they enter this “clinic” that they may be exposed to posters and videos depicting actual abortion footage or deceased fetuses. I’m guessing that they will most likely not be aware that they are participating in the training of a nurse who seeks to give women ultrasounds for the sole purpose of convincing her that if she has an abortion, that she is murdering her baby. And finally, I’m guessing that any woman who answers this ad for the free ultrasound may not realize that she is basically helping an organization that uses coercive means to prevent abortions, including lying to women about the time frames of such things as the morning-after-pill, using guilt and religion to convince, and telling women they are sure to get post-abortion stress disorder if they abort their baby.

I suggested to the moderator that her message likely violated the ban on politics in the group. Maybe it does, or maybe it doesn’t. I mean, church activity posts are allowed, after all. But I also suggested that if she didn’t take the post down, than she should at least make it clear to the readers what sort of “clinic” this is, and what kind of experience they are likely to get when they arrive. I mean, I’d imagine that some women would be pretty angry if they went for a free ultrasound and ended up seeing a video in the waiting room of an actual abortion procedure. I mean, most of us with half a brain know that when we show up at a church craft fair, we might see some bibles laying around and a crucifix or two. But how many women are going to expect dead fetus pictures when they go for their free sonogram? What I object to most is that the agenda of the ultrasound post is almost completely hidden. You’d have to be really savvy to figure out that it is an anti-abortion center just by the words on the post. When the moderator refused to take down the post or offer up any explanation for other women, am I wrong to assume that she hopes that other women won’t figure it out? Does that make this a non-secular (or at least political) post, then?  I tell you, I’d gladly agree to the moderator taking away vaccination posts if it meant that she would also take down posts from anti-choice clinics.

And speaking of hidden agendas, the website for the actual clinic that I’m talking about is scary.  When I first looked at the main page, I wondered if I had been wrong about them.  After all, they use the words “Empowering Women to Make Informed Choices” in big bold letter, front and center.  Sounds great to a feminist like myself, right?  But then you delve deeper and find that they talk about the “physical, emotional, and spiritual risks” of abortion. What might they mean when they talk about spiritual risks?  Are they talking about that man in red with the horns, or what?  (They actually link to another website that has this to say: “Having an abortion may affect more than just your body and your mind — it may have an impact on your relationship with God. What is God’s desire for you in this situation? How does God see your unborn child? These are important questions to consider.” ) And here’s the fine print – they won’t actually refer you to an abortion provider.  So if a woman makes an informed choice, she’ll actually have trouble following through on her choice because they won’t help her do it.  In fact, many CPCs, country-wide, will actually attempt to delay women from getting an abortion by lying to her about the allowed time frames so that she will end up  being unable to go through with her plans.  Sounds empowering to me.  Oh, and very secular.  Very, very secular.