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Loyola Students Directed To Abortion Info That's 'Not True,' Doctor Says

By Linze Rice | October 12, 2016 8:55am
 Students For Reproductive Justice say Loyola has twice put links to websites on its Wellness Center page that include
Students For Reproductive Justice say Loyola has twice put links to websites on its Wellness Center page that include "inaccurate medical information" for pregnant students.
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Facebook/Students for Reproductive Justice

ROGERS PARK — For the second time in recent weeks, students at Loyola University say they are pushing back against a link on the school's website that directs pregnant students to "inaccurate medical information" regarding abortion and birth control.

Melissa Haggerty, a student and member of Students for Reproductive Justice, said her group took issue with a link on the university's Wellness Center website that brings users to The Women's Center, a pro-life nonprofit formerly called Des Plaines Pro Life whose Web address is AbortionChoices.com.

The website states that abortions can cause increased risks of breast cancer and that most women experience "post abortion stress," which includes drug addiction and "sexual dysfunction" — information that has no basis in science, according to Dr. Jessica Shepherd, an assistant professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Illinois at Chicago's School of Medicine. The site also likens emergency contraception, such as the "morning after pill," to a medically induced abortion.

Anti-abortion pregnancy "crisis centers" are nothing new, but students feel that it's problematic for an institution of higher learning to pass them off as legitimate options given the medically inaccurate information they provide. Planned Parenthood's website warns of these faux clinics, stating they often "pretend to be real health care providers" who "may make women think they will be offered unbiased information and a full range of health services," but are in fact anti-choice groups

"I have a lot of problems with this website in general," Shepherd said Tuesday. "Immediately I can tell I'm not impressed by it at all. There's no clinical references behind it. I don't like it, I would never endorse it."

Neither Loyola nor The Women's Center returned requests for comment.

Haggerty said she and others met with the Wellness Center's director who agreed to remove another link to a pro-life crisis center called Aid For Women because it, too, linked abortion to breast cancer and equated emergency contraception to abortions. But they just replaced it with the Women's Center link. 

"I see the same medically inaccurate information we cited in the other one," Haggerty said. "In the meeting it seemed too good to be true, for [the school] to say, 'Oh we'll remove it, no problem.'"

Shepherd also said statements on The Women's Center website were written in a way that exaggerated abortion procedures to make them sound graphic to the point of fear-mongering, such as "scrap[ing] fetal parts out of the uterus."

"No, no that's a horribly written sentence," Shepherd said. 

The website includes descriptions of different types of surgical and medically induced abortions, as well as provides a list of physical and emotional side-effects of the procedure.

The Women's Center claims that: "most women ... go through 'Post Abortion Stress' ... often characterized by feelings of guilt, anger, anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, anniversary grief, abortion flashbacks, sexual dysfunction, relationship problems, eating disorders, and alcohol and drug abuse."

Dr. Shepherd said while it's "possible" a woman could feel one of those ways after an abortion, to experience them all simultaneously with abortion as the root cause was "not true."

"Those are possible side-effects, but I wouldn't say to categorize it as 'most women' go through that, that's not true," Dr. Shepherd said. "There are a lot of women who make educated decisions on why they're doing what they're doing. The whole sentence is stated incorrectly."

She also said the website makes no attempt to back up its claims, some of which have been repeatedly debunked by the medical community. 

In 2003, the National Cancer Institute asked over 100 medical experts to examine potential links between pregnancy and breast cancer — including looking at women who experienced induced abortion or miscarriages — and found there was no increased risk of breast cancer. The findings were reaffirmed in 2015.

Shepherd also pointed out The Women's Center contradicts itself when giving information on emergency contraception often referred to as the "morning after pill."

The website says the purpose of the pill is to prevent pregnancy while also saying it can cause "an early, induced abortion," something Shepherd said is inaccurate. 

The Emergency Contraception Website, an online page run by Princeton University's Office of Population Research and the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals, reports that because the morning after pill prevents pregnancy by delaying ovulation, it may actually reduce the number of women seeking abortions.

"They have all this information on here with no references — not a one," Shepherd said of The Women's Center. "To me it appears very much just like, information out there. I would never send my patients to this website."

Loyola, a private Catholic university, is a pro-life institution but is far from the only college to point pregnant students to other pro-life organizations. 

According to Students For Life, there are about 2,200 crisis pregnancy centers in the U.S., though the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights League (NARAL Pro-Choice America) says as many as 3,500 clinics may exist, "far outnumbering" the number of places where abortions are provided.

And while Planned Parenthood is often demonized by such groups, their clinics offer a wide range of services for women looking for birth control and gynecological exams. Abortions account for about 3 percent of the services Planned Parenthood provides, Shepherd said.

At the end of the day, though Loyola is a Catholic university, Shepherd said places claiming to be resources for pregnant women should provide accurate, unbiased information.

"There's no statistics given, the information is written incorrectly, I would not endorse it as an OBGYN," Shepherd said. "I think there's better information out there from societies who actually give evidenced-based medicine education and health care providers who can offer information across the board, unbiased." 

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