A “faith-based” organization with opinions about your pregnancy has taken out ads on Halifax Transit buses, and that’s not sitting well with Allison Sparling.
No, the news isn’t on repeat. Yes, this all happened back in January when anti-abortion group Signs4Life took out bus ads, prompting Sparling, South House and others to band together and raise funds for their own pro-choice ads. But now Signs4Life are back, as are new ads for the Open Door Women’s Care Centre. The latter, Sparling says, is more alarming than the former. “I have a problem with those, but I understand that at their root they’re very open about what their motivations are,” Sparling says of Signs4Life. “This is, I feel, a very, very different situation.”
Open Door is one of hundreds of pregnancy “care centres” in Canada that use innocent names and obfuscation to cloak the anti-abortion tactics they deploy on the unsuspecting women who walk through their doors. Open Door works as a member of the Canadian Association of Pregnancy Support Services, an umbrella group that believes “All humankind has intrinsic value and significance from conception to natural death.”
According to the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, members of CAPSS must adhere to several rules of conduct, including defining their centre as an “outreach ministry of Jesus Christ” and a Code of Counseling Ethics which says counsellors must not “provide, recommend or refer clients for abortion.”
Which is not the attitude you’d ideally want when seeking impartial medical advice. “We are here to help women make informed decisions about their reproductive options,” Open Door’s executive director Heather Harman writes in an email, calling it a “non-political, faith-based, non-profit organization.”
Tiffany Chase, speaking for the city, stresses that Halifax Transit’s advertising policy is easily found in all riders’ guides, as well as online. That policy takes great pains, citing a 2009 Supreme Court decision on freedom of speech, to describe how though an ad might be offensive that doesn’t mean it can be taken down. Chase also emphasizes that third-party contractor Pattison Outdoor is ultimately in charge of what ads go on municipal transit.
“Pattison obviously is a large company that places ads all across Canada,” she says. “They’re very familiar with the standards.”
That would be the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards, which states anyone posting an advocacy advertisement must be clearly identified.
“Both of those ads do contain a way for you to find out more information about the organization that has posted the ad,” Chase says.
But what do you find out when Googling these organizations? Open Door’s site remains vague about its “faith-based” offerings, especially what’s entailed in “pregnancy options counseling.”
Advocacy ads under national standards must identify their organizations, but the code also says advertisements must not contain “inaccurate, deceptive or otherwise misleading claims” in regards to services offered. They also must “not omit relevant information in a manner that, in the result, is deceptive.”
Targeting a very specific audience (that’s largely made up of lower-income adults and students or minors) without letting them know your pregnancy centre is opposed to abortion sure seems deceptive.
“If someone that sees an ad feels they’re distasteful, or they feel that they’re in conflict with the advertising standards, they can write to the advertising standards council with a complaint,” Chase says.
Sparling is taking a different approach, or, a similar approach to what worked before. She’s hoping public outcry will help counter the ads, and has launched a petition (viewable here) which she hopes will clarify the rules for displaying misleading medical information in transit advertisements.
“It’s a way to gather awareness that these things are on the bus,” she says. “I’m not convinced that if we got enough public pressure we couldn’t get change in our own way.”
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Misleading billboard fuels false information about abortion
This article appears in Sep 25 – Oct 1, 2014.
The advert illustrating this article conveys facts.
One can interpret it as promoting abortion. Very clever wording.
Abortion is presented as the first option to women facing an unplanned pregnancy. There are a number of groups who advocate for abortion. Now that two small groups come forward, promoting pregnancy, there is an uproar. How can this be seen as pro-choice?
The issue isn’t about groups with a pro-pregnancy stance. The issue is about groups with a pro-pregnancy stance obscuring the fact that they have a pro-pregnancy stance.
And no–in my experience volunteering in the sexual health realm–abortion is not presented as the first option to women facing unplanned pregnancy. In a true and respectful pro-choice organization abortion is an option presented alongside carrying the pregnancy to term and the various options for what happens once the baby is born.
I’m sorry. I’m having a hard time understanding how the Open Door advertisement is misleading- is it not a pregnancy crisis center? Are not pregnancy crisis centers there to help women with a pregnancy crisis? Counselling is about information, facts and options. There is much science these days to back up claims as to when human life begins and what it looks like through all stages of fetal development. Wouldn’t you want ALL the facts before you were to make a life altering decision? Whether or not abortions are referred through this center is irrelevant. This “service” is available and accessible both at the VG hospital and the IWK ( up to almost full term) The abortion option has been chosen 3 million times in Canada alone since 1969 and many, many more unreported. The center is called”Open Door” because they have an open door policy- you are free to come and go as yo like, there is no judgment, just people waiting to help in a crisis situation. What are we so afraid of? Women choosing to keep their babies or opting for adoption? Some real, positive choice? Again, the woman ultimately decides where she will go and what she will decide. I can’t see any real issue with any of these adds.
I am having some difficulty with the reporting here. The article is primarily about the Open Door Centre, yet the picture shows a sign from Signs for Life. The two organizations are not affiliated, they just happened to have parallel campaigns. And no one from Signs for Life was contacted for a statement with regards to this article.
Also the author states that there are “hundreds of pregnancy care centres” in Canada. Having just spent three days with the directors of four centres from NS and NB, I would challenge Jacob Boon to do his homework. There are a total of four such centres in NS, another 4 in NB, and I believe one more in another Atlantic province. CAPSS lists around 40 centres in Canada, so where are the other 50 or so?
A badly written article, badly researched, in my opinion.
Wow, what a fuckup. Thanks, Julie.
Hi Julie,
CAPSS own website states they “provide leadership development, operational standards, staff and volunteer training along with spiritual encouragement to over 70 affiliated Centres” across the country. Four years ago, the Toronto Star claimed there were 197 pro-life “crisis pregnancy centres” across Canada (ttp://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2010/08/07/deception_used_in_counselling_women_against_abortion.html), using numbers from Canadians Against Pregnancy Care Centres (https://www.facebook.com/CanadiansAgainstP…). That group’s latest map states there’s currently 191 “decoy” women’s health clinics in the country. Over one hundred seemed like a reasonable, factual estimation.
The Signs for Life ads do appear to be unrelated “parallel” campaigns that have struck up with similar goals on transit ads at the exact same time. Open Door never responded to my follow-up question on whether the groups are linked. As this article was about “pregnancy care centres,” Signs for Life’s campaign bore mentioning but wasn’t really relevant to what Allison’s concerns were about Open Door.
I agree the photo may seem misleading, but both ads are discussed. The article should have at least had both, but that slipped past me in production. Apologies for that, but I hope this eases some of your other concerns.
Are any of these pro-life groups claiming to “medical” establishments? Or are they simply providing a counselling service that promotes pro-life options to pregnant women? It seems like they’re saying that it’s possible to survive pregnancy and childbirth/adoption without abortion and are offering support/counselling for that. I’m having a hard time understanding what’s wrong here. Like Katie says above, they are providing an option for pregnant women, through a faith-based organization that many of us may not agree with, but a legal and non-harming option nonetheless. I’m not sure it’s clear what the exact problems is here. Are we afraid that pregnant women won’t have the power to not be brainwashed and make the decision to have an abortion after visiting one of these places?
“Are we afraid that pregnant women won’t have the power to not be brainwashed and make the decision to have an abortion after visiting one of these places?”
Thank you! I was thinking along these lines aswell!
Jacob Boon states: “…they deploy on the unsuspecting women who walk through their doors…”
Are we really giving women so little intellectual credit? Do Jacob Boon or Allison Sparling really think that a pregnant woman is not as capable as they are to look up the Centre online and decide whether or not it is a place they want to contact? Do we really think a pregnant women is so incapable of deciding, even after contact, whether or not she wants to see them again, consider the information provided or as Katie mentioned, decide whether or not she wants to look elsewhere?
Like Katie, I am tempted to ask the question, what are we afraid of?
When did we decide that pregnant women were so gulliable and delicate that we have to protect them from being “unsuspecting” victims of a bus ad?
I think women deserve more intellectual credit and strength than that / this!
Deceptive bus ads hide anti-euthanasia agenda
http://s3-media2.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/PgN…
Oh, the humanity.
Oh! The horror! Women might be convinced not to murder their babies!!!