Anti-abortion Crisis Pregnancy Centers

Another area of concern I have as I observed the Alpha Center's presentations was their presentation of their value judgment that teens should remain abstinent until marriage, saying and indicating that to do so would avoid unintended pregnancy and exposure to HIV and STDS. First, such value judgments should be left to parents to impart, not a biased organization trying to promote their own religious and moral agenda.

Second, there are two other things that trouble me as much, if not more, about this practice the Alpha Center engages in.

1. First, the Alpha Center is wrongly conveying to our students that marriage guarantees an unintended pregnancy will not occur. That is simply not the case. Many married couples seek abortion services, for example, after becoming pregnant at a time

when they had not intended and were not ready, for a number of reasons, to become parents. The Christian-based Alpha Center, believes an unintended pregnancy within a marriage is, while technically an unintended pregnancy, should not and therefore will not be one that will be greeted as an unwanted pregnancy simply because the couple is married, a highly erroneous assumption to be giving our youngsters.

Randall Terry, former head of Operation Rescue, and self-described anti-abortion and anti-birth control crusader, put it this way, "Christian married couples should not use birth control. They should consummate their marriage as often as they like and if they have babies they have babies. They should leave it up to God as to how many babies they will have."

2. In a presentation at Lesher Junior High on May 8, 2003, the Alpha Center volunteer told the class that the consequences of actions are very different between being married and not being married. In marriage there was loyalty, financial support, a wanted pregnancy, and the father is known while outside of marriage there wasn't always loyalty nor was it as financially stable and that a pregnancy is a crisis pregnancy or not wanted. And at Poudre High School in March, Jeff Green a youth pastor in the community and an Alpha Center volunteer said, "Waiting till you are married to have sex is going to protect you from things." In all of his presentations that I observed, he talked specifically and often about teens remaining abstinent until marriage.

Additionally, remember the Alpha Center will not refer any woman, including a married woman, to a physician in the community for birth control. They are of the belief that all but barrier forms of birth control or the rhythm method - are abortifacient in nature, or cause an abortion, and that once married if a pregnancy results, one simply has the baby. There is no recognition whatsoever of the fact that a pregnancy can be both unintended and unwanted even inside of marriage. That is misleading our youngsters about, most importantly, the reality of marriage, which is terribly disturbing.

"The Alpha Center is wrongly conveying to our students that marriage guarantees
an unintended pregnancy will not occur. That is simply not the case."

3. The Alan Guttmacher Institute, May 2, 2003, on their web site in an article titled, Marriage is No Immunity from Problems with Planning Pregnancies said, "Policies designed to promote and strengthen marriage are gaining currency at all levels of government, and a key goal of many of these initiatives is to reduce out-of-wedlock childbearing. By focusing exclusively on non-marital births, however, these efforts ignore that married people also face considerable difficulties planning their families. Given the large numbers of married couples who experience an unintended pregnancy and either an abortion or an unintended birth, emphasis in 'marriage promotion' policies and programs should be placed on ensuring that married couples and couples contemplating marriage have the counseling and education they need to help them avoid these stressful events.."

Guttmacher goes on to say, "According to recent data, (1994), three million married women in this country become pregnant each year. However, only seven in 10 of these pregnancies are planned. In other words, almost one million married women each year unexpectedly find themselves pregnant.and four in 10 unintended pregnancies to married

women each year end in abortion.resulting in 345,000 abortions to married women each year. All in all, 17% of abortions in the United States occur to married women."

Guttmacher determined that's the case because, "Almost half (44%) of married women who had an abortion in 2000-2001 were not using a contraceptive method in the month they became pregnant, although most had used a method in the recent past.three in 10 perceived that they were unlikely to become pregnant, perhaps because they had just had a baby or because they had assumed that they were infertile, and almost half reported that they had had concerns or felt ambivalent about contraceptive methods. Other women reported that they had either unexpected or unwanted sex, that they had had difficulty obtaining contraception or that their partner preferred that they not use contraception.more than half (56%) of married women who had had an abortion, however, were using contraception during the month they became pregnant. Almost half (46%) of those had used condoms, and a quarter (24%) had relied on oral contraceptives, with most citing inconsistent contraceptive use rather than contraceptive failure as the reason they became pregnant."

"The Alan Guttmacher Institute, May 2, 2003, on their web site said, '. almost one million married women each year unexpectedly find themselves pregnant.
17% of abortions in the United States occur to married women."

Again I would submit and argue that it is not less accurate information about contraceptives and condoms that students need but more, not just to be able to successfully and effectively navigate avoidance of pregnancy and STDs if they make a decision to be sexually active as a teen, but also to be able to know how important it is to remain vigilant about the correct and consistent use of contraceptives including condoms once married so as to certainly avoid a pregnancy until they have planned for and are prepared to become parents.

Abstinence-only till marriage public school sex education curriculum, like what the Alpha Center teaches promoting the untrue and unrealistic idea that the institution of marriage will protect couples from unintended pregnancy and STDs, flowing again directly from the religious bias and political agenda of the Alpha Center, will not change the statistics reported above or bring the truth to Poudre School District students.

4. Next, as modeled by their "Crowed Bed" game, (which I will specifically address in a moment) marriage doesn't mean one will be free of HIV or STD's even from the moment of saying "I do."

The Alan Guttmacher Institute said, again on its web site, May 2003, regarding married people's risk of contracting STDs, "In terms of risk factors, marriage is generally regarded as being protective against sexually transmitted diseases, since married people are far less likely than single people to have multiple sexual partners. However, an analysis of the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth by researchers at the Alan Guttmacher Institute found that 9% of women married for more than one year reported that either they or their husband had had another sexual partner within the past year. This means that 2.5 million married women and their husbands are potentially at risk of STDs because of infidelity. Among women married less than one year, the proportion at risk is 22%, or an additional 410,000 women and their partners. (As these women were married less than a year when they were asked about additional partners during that year, some of these sexual encounters occurred prior to marriage.) Researchers believe that these figures may be quite conservative, because women may be reluctant to report their own infidelity (or sexual partners prior to marriage) and may not know when their husbands have been unfaithful."

"The Alpha Center never addresses the reality that sometimes marriage
partners are not monogamous within the bounds of marriage and that will then
place the husband or wife at risk."

The Alpha Center never addresses the reality that sometimes marriage partners are not monogamous within the bounds of marriage and that will then place the husband or wife at risk. It is as if that reality does not and never will exist in anyone's reality but it does, including within many Christian marriages throughout the country. It is of course not unusual that as a fundamentally Christian-based organization the Alpha Center touts the advantages of marriage, but when the advantages they articulate are not also tempered with the truth and reality of marriage, particularly as it relates to issues of sex, pregnancy, and disease, the Alpha Center is being dishonest and deceptive with our students about a very serious and life-altering legal and for most religious commitment.

Finally, the better instruction for a classroom group with great diversity of life experiences within their own families, including infidelity within their parent's marriage, is to say to teenagers that they should be, are expected to be and can be abstinent until they are in an adult committed relationship. That accomplishes two things. One it stresses the concept of commitment, which is needed in a marriage or in a long-term monogamous relationship outside marriage. But it also allows families that believe that their children should wait to have a sexual relationship until they are married to say that within their family's moral value system that an adult committed relationship is marriage. It honors the diversity within the classroom that, for example, the Senior High Health Course description I referenced earlier said is part of the Human Sexuality Philosophy Statement (copy enclosed) and it makes the abstinence point very well.

5. Next let me address the impact of the game that several of the Alpha Center presenters used called the "Crowed Bed" game because it is equally troubling to me. The game begins by describing a couple, Sabrina and Sam, on the eve of their wedding contemplating their sexual pasts. By the end of the game, nearly every one in the class finds themselves standing at the front of the room as a former sexual partner or wife of either Sabrina or Sam, with an STD and an abortion thrown in for good measure. The Alpha Center cleverly articulated the organization's biased value regarding abortion into the story saying, "She (Sabrina) had an abortion and was devastated."

The game concludes by asking what problems might this couple experience in their marriage considering Sabrina had three previous sexual partners and Sam seven. The answer was a lack of trust, STD's, problems with honesty and even divorce. Yet one of the volunteers, who admitted she had had pre-marital sex then married one of her pre-marital sexual partners, never told the class which of the problems she articulated they

had experienced so far in their marriage or expected to experience throughout the life of their marriage that now included a toddler son. She also never shared what kind of plan she and her husband have put together to deal with these problems that will present themselves, so they can remain married till death do them part. In my daughter's health class in 2001, students were told these complications would, for a fact, occur in their future marriages if they had pre-marital sex.

The Alpha Center also delivered a mixed message. Every presenter began with an activity in which they pulled out a credit card or a piece of paper money and stepped on it or waded it up and asked if it was still valuable. What if they threw it in the trash, would someone still want it, is it still valuable? The answer is yes. The lesson: "No matter what you have done in your past, even if you have already had sex, you are still a very valuable person. No matter what your choices are or have been you are valuable. You are valuable because you are a human being. You mean the same thing to those in your life."

"It is also hurtful to our youngsters and does them a terrible disservice to send
them mixed messages that go directly to the issue of their self-esteem."

Yet, the point of the "Crowed Bed" game is to demonstrate otherwise and impress upon students that pre-marital sex will lead to a disvaluing of the person or persons who were sexually active outside marriage by their future marriage partner, and that the person or persons in the marriage who engaged in pre-marital sexual activity, cannot be fully trusted nor will they in all likelihood be loyal during the life of their marital relationship. In addition to what was said in my daughter's 2001 class, I understand in other presentations the Alpha Center did this past school year witnessed by other observers, the Alpha Center again said that if a person has pre-marital sex they will experience certain things in a marriage, like a lack of fidelity, trust, and divorce was or could very likely be in the cards as well.

In conclusion, it takes a lot of work to make a marriage successful through a lot of trials and tribulations and the last thing young people need is to be misled about any aspect of the marital relationship, including that marriage will prevent an unintended pregnancy or the risk of contracting STD's or HIV/AIDS or that marriage after engaging in pre-marital sex means certain things, all bad in nature, will be apart of their experience in that marital relationship without any kind of scientific studies whatsoever to prove that assertion. It is also hurtful to our youngsters and does them a terrible disservice to send them mixed messages that go directly to the issue of their self-esteem.

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