At a $100-per-plate fundraiser on April 21 at the Hudson Valley Resort in Kerhonkson, guests were treated to chicken and cheesecake, along with the testimony of a man who had given up pornography for the greater glory of God.
"One way I tried to escape from the hurt and loneliness [of a tumultuous childhood] was in pornography, which found its way into my life in junior high school," WLNA/WBNR radio DJ Tom Michaels Zahradnik said with regret. "The pornography led to promiscuity in high school with one particular girl. Even though I was a 'good Catholic boy,' I justified my premarital sex by saying: 'If you love someone it is okay before marriage.' Through my irresponsibility and selfishness I got this girl pregnant. Neither of us could go to our parents, so I took her to an abortion clinic in a neighboring city. The emotional scars of pornography, pre-marital sex, and the abortion lasted several years. After I surrendered my life to Christ, I had to deal with the guilt and the shame of killing a human being. There are many things I can give my children, but I can't give them the testimony of a father who was sexually pure before marriage. I have since shared with my older two children about my poor sexual choices and about the abortion. As a father who has made a habit of sharing my shortcomings with my children, they listened, understood and are committed to remaining sexually pure. They are saving the best gift they have for their future spouses - their virginity."
Zahradnik's emotional speech was just a taste of the embers being quietly yet passionately fanned behind a benign-sounding agency, the Pregnancy Support Center (PSC), whose sponsors, according to the program, include the Kingston Freeman and Ulster Savings Bank. The benefit raised $16,000 for its New Paltz and Saugerties locations, said executive director Sharon La Rose, although the fundraising fell short of reaching its $20,000 goal.
In between prayers, La Rose, Ryan Dobson, and other speakers repeated a consistent mantra throughout the evening to describe abortion to over 350 guests: "Abortion is murder, plain and simple."
Dobson is the son of James C. Dobson, who founded Focus on the Family in 1977 with a goal to "cooperate with the Holy Spirit in disseminating the Gospel of Jesus Christ to as many people as possible, and, specifically, to accomplish that objective by helping to preserve traditional values and the institution of the family." Focus on the Family has been named by Planned Parenthood as one of the top anti-choice organizations in the country.
"You get jail time for tampering with abortion doctors about to kill an unborn baby. That's stupid," Dobson said just before dessert.
Copies of his book, Be Intolerant, were on sale in the hotel lobby.
An occasional stiletto-heeled blonde and green-haired teen accentuated an otherwise conservative audience of families, church groups, and volunteers. All stuck to chaste pitchers of iced tea set out on the tables. Some teens, donning black, baggy pants and piercings, began gathering outside the hotel before coffee was served, while their more-carefully coiffed peers, in pantyhose or shiny loafers, stayed at the tables bouncing siblings, or perhaps children of their own, on their laps.
La Rose, who took over the PSC last year, outlined an aggressive campaign to increase their visibility and "save more lives."
"It is our mission to extend ourselves to abortion-minded and abortion-vulnerable girls," La Rose told her audience. "Oftentimes young people don't understand the consequences of the decisions they make. If they know more about their options of adoption and keeping their babies, they will make better choices."
The number one way people can help the centers, La Rose said, is to pray for them. "Without prayer, we might as well close our doors," she said.
STEALTH FIGHTER
Although the New Paltz center has been around since 1986, the Saugerties center - opened in 2001 - is fairly new, and so is its leadership. La Rose took over last year from former director Ellen Siletsky, whom La Rose said has since moved on to teaching after seven years at the center. This is the first year the center will try two fundraising dinners in one year, she said. Traditionally, their main fundraiser is held in the Fall, but one of her main goals is to have enough monthly supporters to cover their $100,000 annual operating budget and all the plans she has to increase services and visibility.
La Rose, who looks both comforting and severe at the same time, has been married and living in Saugerties for 39 years. She left a full-time job at IBM to become a homemaker for 17 of those years, and has two grown sons. While working as administrative assistant to the president of a bank in Rhinebeck, she continued to teach scripture to women in her church. Her father, she said with pride, was a machinist who worked on the A-117 stealth fighter, a framed poster of which La Rose said graces her living room wall. The A-117 is a virtually indestructible weapon of mass annihilation that enables 20 different targets to be simultaneously acquired, attacked and destroyed within 22 feet of accuracy. It is impervious to weather, temperatures, and poor visibility.
"I love the stealth," La Rose said, getting flushed. "It is so gorgeous!"
SCRIPTURAL FOUNDATION
The Saugerties center is tucked behind Frank's Hunting Lodge down a narrow alleyway just off Partition Street. The New Paltz office sits in the low-key Cherry Hill shopping plaza among other non-descript storefronts. No crosses or Bibles mark the self-described ministries inside. According to LaRose, they offer free and confidential pregnancy tests, as well as abortion and post-abortion peer counseling, support groups, free maternity and baby clothes, diapers and formula, childbirth and parenting classes, and adoption information. "Peer" counselors (meaning they are not professionals) educate those seeking information about the "realities of abortion," La Rose said.
La Rose emphasized that she and her 15 volunteers don't push their beliefs on the center's clients, and Chronogram spoke to two young women who visited the center and confirmed there was no mention of religion. But the center's staff also does not hide the fact that they consider themselves a ministry in their literature. The center's scriptural foundation is made clear in its mission statement to "uphold the value of human life by befriending, educating, comforting, and supporting those with pregnancy-related needs," the statement reads. "The center offers God's love by proclaiming the Gospel of Christ and His plan for sexuality, marriage, and the family to the community."
La Rose admits, "We do hold a very strong scriptural view when it comes to abortion and life, but I want teens and college students to know that they can come here and receive the love and care they need. We're not here to make the decisions for them. We don't argue. We just put the information out there. There are a lot of organizations out there that don't provide all the details of abortion. If a girl comes in and doesn't know what an abortion is, we show her what it is. Many believe the fetus is a piece of tissue or a blob of blood. They don't realize it's a baby. We provide information on all the choices a young woman has, including the emotional and physical risks of abortion."
Whether the fetus can be defined in its early stages as a baby, and what constitutes the physical and emotional risks of abortion is hotly debated between pro-life and pro-choice groups. Abortion "facts" put out by pro-life organizations like CareNet, describe the abortion procedure as "forcing open the cervix," and refer to a "baby", while pro-choice organizations typically describe it as a "dilation of the cervix" and "contents of the uterus." They also disagree on the physical and emotional risks of pregnancy, each side accusing the other of lying to women as a means to propagate their own beliefs.
THE EVANGELICAL CONNECTION
The Pregnancy Support Center and 749 others like it across the US and Canada are affiliates of a national non-profit pro-life organization called CareNet, which was founded 20 years ago by Harold "O.J." Brown, also co-founder of the Christian Action Council, another leading evangelical pro-life group. In addition to training, marketing, and resources, the centers rely on CareNet for medical and statistical information on pregnancy and abortion, La Rose said. Billboards advocating pro-life values, like many throughout Ulster County, are funded in part by organizations like CareNet, which also operates a 24-hour call center that connects women to the pregnancy centers and distributes over one million bulletin inserts each year to promote their work. In return, the local centers pay CareNet an annual fee.
Other pro-life organizations, such as the New York State Right to Life Organization and Heartbeat International, also provide information on pregnancy and abortion for the pregnancy centers, La Rose said. One video shown to clients by PSC shows the growing fetus from four to 12 weeks old through a camera inserted into the womb. The narrator, pro-life obstetrician Camilla Hersh, claims that the fetus shows brain activity in response to pain between the ninth and tenth week of pregnancy.
"The entire body except the back and top of the head responds to pain at 13½ weeks," Hersh says over music and the unfurling of tiny fingers and toes. The video ends with colorful photographs of healthy, smiling children.
The accuracy of that information is what concerns organizations like Planned Parenthood, which posts warnings about "so-called pregnancy centers" on its Web site and in its literature: "They lie about the medical and emotional effects of abortion," their brochures warn.
For example, according to Planned Parenthood, research is conclusive that a fetus cannot feel pain during an abortion that occurs before the 20th week of pregnancy, which is when 99 percent of abortions occur. In fact, their research goes as far as to say that a fetus may not be able to perceive pain at any time during pregnancy. While PSC and CareNet link abortion to breast cancer and future fertility problems, Planned Parenthood cites dozens of studies refuting such theories. The agencies also differ in opinion on the after-effects of abortion. PSC offers a support group for women grieving after an abortion.
"We've seen so many women suffer the repercussions after an abortion. We decided we'd like to offer an alternative," La Rose said. "We want to help them sort out their feelings and deal with the reality of abortion."
Planned Parenthood research concludes that most women feel relief after an abortion: "There is no scientific proof for these claims [of post-abortion trauma]," one of their pamphlets reads. "Serious, long-term emotional problems after abortion are extremely rare and less common than they are after childbirth." Giving a child up for adoption is often the most stressful of all the options, they claim.
Caught in the middle are emotionally fragile, pregnant girls. The average age of the center's clients in New Paltz is 13, La Rose said; in Saugerties, the average age is 15. The centers' educational photographs and videos include pictures of fetal development, but La Rose said she doesn't show any photographs or videos of abortion procedures to clients. "If she does decide to have an abortion, we are there for her. We are always here for the woman," she said.
However, La Rose clarified, they will not refer or accompany a woman who chooses abortion to a clinic or provide information on contraception. And while the local Planned Parenthood clinics and the YWCA list PSC as a resource for women who decide to keep their babies, the pregnancy centers do not return the gesture. PSC will not refer anyone to Planned Parenthood or any other pro-choice family planning clinics, she said.
La Rose is being assisted in her mission by a brand new board of directors president. Frank Fabiano is also pastor of her congregation, the Saugerties Community Church, which meets every Sunday morning in the Howard Johnson conference room. La Rose said denominations there are irrelevant. "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved,"she said.
"Finances for non-profits are difficult in a small area like this," Fabiano explained. "But one of the biggest things we're concentrating on is just informing more people where we're located and that we're here for them. People don't know we're available in Saugerties," he said. "We know there are girls out there that are pregnant. And I don't believe that girls want to kill their children. They may think that's their only option, so we're getting the word out. It's a time for renewal."
FRAUD & DECEPTION
In 1988, state Attorney General Robert Abrams launched an investigation into a pregnancy support center called the Alternative Pregnancy Center in Brewster, Putnam County. Assistant Attorney General Nick Guerin said his office received complaints by women who went there seeking pregnancy counseling and were shown a "horrific film" depicting an aborted fetus in a trash can and subjected to moralistic harangues that equated abortion with murder.
According to Guerin, this center used fraud and deception in their billboard and phone book advertising to lure women under false pretenses. His office brought a case against the Alternative Pregnancy Center and won, requiring them to stop soliciting women for counseling through fraud and to make clear to potential clients that they were an anti-abortion advocacy group.
Then, in January 2002, state Attorney General Elliot Spitzer began another investigation into pregnancy support centers across the state after a woman complained she was held against her will at a pregnancy support center in Victor, Ontario County. Spitzer soon issued subpoenas to similar centers across the state stating he was concerned about bait and switch advertising practices "that might lead women to believe the centers provide medical services, abortions, or referrals for abortions when in fact their goal was to persuade women not to consider abortion," he said.
Less than a month later, after a great deal of pressure from the pro-life movement, Spitzer announced a settlement. He agreed to withdraw the subpoenas from several pregnancy centers across the state in exchange for following certain guidelines.
"For women seeking alternatives to abortion, pregnancy crisis centers can provide valuable services," Spitzer said in a press release. "It is imperative, however, that the staff and management of these facilities understand and adhere to the law regarding advertising and counseling."
While these centers are still not regulated by the state as are Planned Parenthood and other medical providers, they must now clearly state that they do not provide any medical services or make referrals for them. They are required to disclose that their centers are not licensed medical providers qualified to diagnose or accurately date pregnancy; they must inform women that only licensed medical providers can confirm pregnancy or provide medical advice about pregnancy; and they must clarify in advertising and consumer contacts that the pregnancy tests provided are self-administered over-the-counter tests. A sign on the bathroom door at the New Paltz center now reminds clients that they must administer and interpret pregnancy test results themselves. The center also added the word "peer" into descriptions of counseling services to remind clients that their counselors are not professionals.
However, La Rose said a former board member filled her in on the investigation. "We reviewed our policies and procedures at the time and decided to change nothing about the way we operate. We've always had high standards regarding truth in advertising, client care, and confidentiality," she said.
The executive director of a Utica center called Care Net Pregnancy Center of Central New York (also a CareNet affiliate), Jacque Wagner, said her center was one of those subpoenaed by Spitzer two years ago, but echoed La Rose in the sentiment that the attorney general's charges were completely baseless. They both characterized it as an unsuccessful campaign by NARAL Pro-Choice America, formerly the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, to close pro-life centers. "We always did everything according to the law and with integrity," Wagner said. "The investigation was related to false advertising and all ours was done honestly and accurately.
NO SCARE TACTICS
Extensive inquiries by Chronogram revealed no gruesome stories like those allegedly experienced by the Brewster or Victor centers. One young women said she felt uncomfortable talking with them about abortion, while another found comfort, although each was leaning toward a different choice when they walked in. Olivia (names have been changed to protect identity) said she was 17 and "scared to death" when she got pregnant. She went to the New Paltz Pregnancy Support Center for help and information.
"It seemed pretty normal until they started talking to me," Olivia said. "They started talking about, 'why I would want to do that [consider an abortion].' They started talking about the abortion process and telling me why abortion is bad."
Olivia said her brief visit to the center did not make her second-guess her decision to have an abortion, and when she went to Planned Parenthood she found a more relaxed and comfortable atmosphere. She continues to go for free counseling, referrals, health services, and birth control. They also helped her obtain a free and legal abortion after Olivia made the choice to do so.
Christine, 22, also visited the New Paltz center when she was pregnant and said she found comfort in talking to the center's volunteer. They asked her to describe the pros and cons of having an abortion and let her do most of the talking. She ended up keeping the baby, but said she did not realize they were a Christian organization, although they referred to her baby as "the saved one." They sent her home with several months worth of new maternity clothes, as well as supplies for the baby when he is born, and told her to come back any time, she said.
La Rose said she does not like to use scare tactics like those alleged by women in the Brewster and Victor cases. Her methods are focused more on the aspect of the fetus as a unique child from the moment of conception. Exposing pregnant girls and women to visual images of the fetus (or zygote), can be powerful enough on its own according to La Rose. She hopes to find the money to install sonogram machines and nurses in both centers so they can provide this powerful visualization.
"It has been documented that when the client sees her unborn child at any stage, her understanding is raised. This greatly enhances her ability to make an informed decision," she said.
THE GIFT OF VIRGINITY
Since last April, La Rose has addressed the Ulster County legislature and the town of Ulster town board to announce the center's presence. She's also been a guest on Kingston's WGHQ morning show and Lake Katrine's WFGB, as well as at over a dozen churches. She next plans to appeal to middle and high schools, both public and private, to install an abstinence program that lapsed two years ago when Siletsky left.
"These programs would not necessarily come from a scriptural point of view, but more from a common sense perspective," she explained.
La Rose seems undaunted by the sobering statistics showing that nearly half of all US pregnancies are unintended and half of all women in the US will have an abortion. She does not believe in providing birth control education to the majority of teens who will have sex despite abstinence education, and has no answers for them. According to La Rose, the Bible has all the answers.
"We may not reach all students," La Rose conceded, "but even if we only reach a few, those few can give the gift of virginity to their spouses."
Currently, she is seeking a volunteer abstinence director to administer these programs, but hopes to one day be able to afford a paid position. In stark contrast, Planned Parenthood opposes any limitation or restriction on the access of adolescents to confidential contraception and abortion. While federal and state taxes currently fund Planned Parenthood programs in New York public schools, La Rose may have soon have Congress on her side: President George Bush has proposed doubling federal funding for abstinence-only programs to $270 million in 2005. La Rose currently has an annual budget of $100,000 and said she has little to spare. However, she said that PSC and other CareNet affiliates do not now, nor do they ever want to, accept public funds, because the centers would then be subject to government oversight. In May, PSC organized a baby bottle campaign that invited people to take home the bottles, drop in their loose change at the end of each day, and return them to the centers when full.
SUBJECTIVE INFORMATION
Mary Tyler, office manager of the New Paltz Planned Parenthood, said most of the women who come to her clinic choose abortion. Adoption is the least popular choice, but she emphasized that her staff does not try to sway clients one way or another. Planned Parenthood is staffed by medical professionals who advise clients of all their options, including information on the nature, consequences, and risks of abortion, and counseling on the alternatives, Tyler said.
Pat Ernenwein, executive director of the Planned Parenthood program covering clinics in Ulster, Dutchess, Sullivan, and Orange counties, said she refers women to the Pregnancy Support Centers because she believes women need all the choices they can get.
"We take advantage of any community resources available," she said. " We'll do anything to get these young mothers what they need because they have nothing."
Ernenwein's co-executive director, Steve White, said while he believes PSC and operations like it provide some good, their subjective view can have devastating results.
"They do some good because they provide Pampers and cribs and so forth," White said. "The major problem with them is they are biased in the information they give. Occasionally they talk or facilitate a young girl into keeping her baby. The problem with that is no one's around to help that girl a year or two after she gives birth. They [PSC] are great during the pregnancy and the first few months to a year, but after that they are nowhere to be seen, then this young mother and her child are left out in this cruel world all by themselves. It's an enormous injustice. I think it's an unintended effect of what they do. It's just not an objective process. They don't offer alternatives."
THREADBARE SOCIAL SERVICES
But La Rose said she hears many success stories at PSC. In May, her staff received a letter in from a woman whose younger sister was pregnant and went to PSC for counseling.
"At her [PSC] appointment," the handwritten letter reads, "[my sister] spoke with a counselor who allowed her to speak freely about all that was on her mind. The support center gave her information about medical options available to her and her baby. They shared other attainable agencies of assistance, as well as essential needs that were available to her right at their premises. She was encouraged to continue to follow her plans of going to college to become a nurse. She left the Pregnancy Support Center with a multitude of beneficial pamphlets and magazines full of beneficial insight for a mother-to-be."
While some of PSC's programs - including abstinence education and the post-abortion group - petered out over the past two years due to staff changes and lagging funds, La Rose chalks it up simply to the nature of volunteer-run organizations. Fueled by letters like these, she is only looking forward now, she said. Once she has secured greater funding streams for PSC, her plans include re-establishing these programs and creating a higher profile for the centers on local radio stations, newspapers, magazines, and even television.
La Rose said everyone she has approached in the community has welcomed her. Even those who disagree with the center's ideology are acutely aware of the needs they serve in a community where social services are increasingly threadbare. For example, she met with the Ulster County YWCA director of Youth and Family Services, Nan Hermus, to advise her of the Pregnancy Support Center's services. The YWCA, a United Way agency, provides case management and services for pregnant and parenting teens, including a home visiting program and a parenting curriculum designed to help young moms finish school. Although five years ago Saugerties had the highest teen pregnancy rate in the county, Hermus said, the programs concentrate on the zip codes with the most consistently high rates in the county: Kingston, Rosendale, and Ellenville. Neither the YWCA or Planned Parenthood have clinics in Saugerties where, according to the Ulster County Department of Health, teen pregnancy rates have been among the highest.
"The YWCA takes a pro-choice stand," Hermus said, "but the reality is that 99.9 percent of these girls [in Saugerties] choose to continue the pregnancy. They don't consider adoption or abortion because they feel it's their responsibility to have it. Abortion is considered not a good thing to do. But our role is to support them with whatever they want to do."
Even some community medical resources, like family clinics, which for legal purposes are politically neutral, have established policies that reflect the personal values of their staff. Dr. Marie Delaparte of the Saugerties Wellness Center, which serves most of the Saugerties High School students, said her staff provides its patients with all options, but encourages abstinence. The Wellness Center does not provide the now-legal Mifeprex, formerly known as RU 486 and informally known as "the abortion pill." The majority of the staff, headed by Dr. Ravi Ramiswami, doesn't feel comfortable with providing it, Delaparte said.
The girls who are showing up pregnant are younger now than they used to be, as young as 13 years old, Delaparte said. However, she added that teen pregnancy seems to have decreased over the past three years due to more prevention efforts. Nine out of ten teens they see decide to go through with their pregnancies. "Then their mothers raise the babies," she said.
Regardless of what her critics might think, La Rose feels she and her growing base of supporters are empowering these girls. "One of our goals is to help these clients understand that their 'crisis' pregnancy does not necessarily mean they are without hope or options," La Rose said. "We are here to help them understand that they are valuable human beings who have amazing opportunities open to them, and that help is available from other agencies in the community that we can connect them to. That's very important. There are many agencies and organizations in Ulster County ready and willing to meet the needs of these clients, their babies, and their families."
Hopefully, Family of Woodstock, the YWCA, and the Department of Social Services will be ready. And if all else fails, as one PSC pamphlet reads, Jesus is waiting: "Every woman with a crisis pregnancy has a spiritual need as well as physical ones. Jesus Christ desires to meet them all."
