Friday, July 23, 2010

Note from a former CareNet employee

The following was mailed to Cedar River Clinics in Washington State in October of 2009. It is reprinted here with permission from the Feminist Women's Health Center.

"prolife" centers don't do much to help women after their child is born

John Kerry said "You can be certain and be wrong." This is how I feel about myself after having worked in the prolife ministry for over 9 years for CareNet and their affiliate "prolife" centers as a software vendor.

I believe that personal information between a client and her counselor should never leave the room. My client intake software is designed to store data on-site at the center so that I never see it. No one has any business seeing personal information except a client and her counselor.

CareNet doesn't feel this way. They heavily endorse an internet based company ekyros.com. Hundreds of their affiliate pregnancy centers use the internet based ekyros.com client intake software. These centers make clients think that their pregnancy history and other confidential information will never leave the room, then they turn around and enter it online and this personal information leaves the center and gets into the hands of ekyros employees.

I am losing my business because I will not change my software to send client data outside the walls of the center. A client already has enough on their mind. They do not need their right to privacy violated.

I don't care about losing my company. The client's right to confidentiality is more important than my business.

I only bring up the point to say that I worked for CareNet and their centers for years for 15 thousand a year and without health benefits and now my wife and I are going under. My wife is ADHD and her medicine is expensive. My situation has convinced me that CareNet and their affiliates don't respect the women who visit them. I know this because they had no respect for my wife and I even though we worked for them for years without medical benefits barely above the poverty line. They won't help the girls after they have their child and have proved this time and again. My situation just helped bring this fact home to me through personal experience.

The very name 'prolife' is deceptive, because it implies that pro choice is pro death. It is fringe prolifers that have murdered innocent people at abortion clinics.

CareNet and their prolife affiliates treated my wife and I like a non-person.

They don't do anything to help the young girls who visit them stay off welfare. These prolifers wash their hands when the child has to grow up in low income housing projects and does nothing to keep the child from turning to crime to support the household. In fact 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.

Check out CareNet's financials. They take in millions a year. Their president and board members each make over 100,000 a year, yet they give 0$ back to their affiliates or to the girls they say they serve.

Ask a center who uses ekyros.com 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 will see 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.

All this is just to say that when the prochoice people say the prolife centers are deceptive and don't look out for the welfare of the client in the long run,
I know this to be true, BECAUSE MY WIFE AND I HAVE WITNESSED WHAT KIND OF HEART THESE "prolife" PEOPLE HAVE FIRST HAND.

The prochoice side is the side that really looks out for the mother and offers family planning and even works with the mother to have her child and looks out for her and her child in the long run if she decides to have the child.

The prochoice side is the side that is not deceptive and really treats the mother and others with respect.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I read your post last week, but wondered then about what you are saying. I see a lot of businesses switching to this kind of off site storage of electronic data.

Check out today's post at NPR's All Tech Considered: http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2010/07/26/128777743/agencies-migrating-to-e-mail-in-the-cloud

I wondered how many doctors' offices already use this sort of system. I am pretty sure the new health care legislation requires electronic medical records.

I'm afraid this letter has the feeling of sour grapes to it.

Crisis Pregnancy Center Watch said...

Anonymous--

99.9% of CPCs are not required under any legislation -- federal, state, or local -- to adhere to legislation regarding health care because they do not qualify as licensed medical facilities. CareNet operates around 1100 CPCs in the country, with very few having a medical license.

Other things non-licensed CPCs and their staff members/volunteers do not have to adhere to: HIPAA, supplying up-to-date medical information, continuity of care, or mandatory reporting of abuse or rape (funny enough because these people regularly accuse Planned Parenthood of such activity).