I believe that personal information shared by a client with her counselor should never leave the counseling room without her consent. The client is already under enough stress without having her right to privacy violated.

Does CareNet feel this way? They seem to exclusively invite or give preferential treatment to internet based client intake software companies like ekyros.com and waycoolsw.com at their conferences. Hundreds of their affiliate pregnancy centers use this internet based client intake software for “convenience”. But, that convenience comes with a heavy price tag for the client. Do these centers make clients think that their pregnancy history and other confidential information will never leave the room, then turn around and enter it online and put it into the hands of outside internet company employees? It seems personal client information leaves the center and gets into their hands without the client’s knowledge.

How can they go to sleep a night? These clients put their trust in this ministry. How would you feel if you were at a very vulnerable time in your life and an outsider was given access to your private information by someone you trusted and that it was done without asking you first?

Ask a center who uses these internet based client intake products if it bothers them that they promise absolute confidentiality to the client and then place the client’s information in the hands of the employees of an outside internet company. Ask them if they inform the client where their information is going? You may be convinced that the client is a non-person to them and (in their eyes) doesn’t even deserve the basic respect of asking the client whether they are comfortable with their personal information leaving the center.

Do their affiliates do anything to help the young girls who visit them stay off welfare. These pro lifers seem to wash their hands when the child has to grow up in low income housing projects and do nothing to keep the child from turning to crime to support the household. I would guess many voted for Bush who believes in tough prison sentences instead of providing educational and other programs to help ensure that these youth do not turn to crime in the first place.

How about CareNet’s financials? They take in millions a year. Their president makes over 100,000 a year. The financials seem to show that they give 0$ back to their affiliates or to the girls they say they serve.

All this is just to say that when the pro choice people say the pro life centers are deceptive and don’t respect and look out for the welfare of the client in the long run, is it possible they have a point in the case of Care Net and some of their centers? I believe it.

Maybe the ACLU should file a class action lawsuit on behalf of these clients (many of whom are underage) who were promised absolute confidentiality but whose private information was allowed to leave the center without their consent and was placed in the hands of companies outside the center?

At the very least, a law should be passed that would require prolife pregnancy centers and other organizations to inform their clients where their personal information is going and ask the clients whether or not they are comfortable with their personal information leaving the center.

And Sheridan, I totally agree. It’s giant, total BS. Not that I can even have children (yay sterility!), but even if I could, I’d still call BS on this.

Looking at the crazy right-wing sites can be kind of entertaining, though, if you’re in the right mood.
One of my favorites is a claim that “You quickly get the false sense that becoming sexually active is pretty safe, and all you have to do to stay safe is to get tested regularly, free of charge, and of course, use condoms.”
Those stupid feminists and gays, with their false claims that protection and screenings make sex safer!