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CARE and Pro-choice abortion counselling

CARE has a network of 162 Crisis Pregnancy Counselling Centres scattered around the UK, most of which are attached to evangelical Christian churches. 

 In my recent book, What is going on in Christian Crisis Pregnancy Counselling? I compare the counselling techniques of CARE’s crisis pregnancy centres with that of pro-choice, pro-abortion organisations such as The British Pregnancy Advisory Service and Marie Stopes.  First, the characteristics of pro-choice abortion counselling:

 1.  Abortion is offered as an option

A prime task of pro-choice counselling is to conceal the moral objections to abortion; that is, to demoralise the issue of abortion.  And this is done by referring to abortion as an ‘option’.  The word option is defined as ‘the power or liberty to choose’.[i]  For once abortion is turned into an ‘option’ it is no longer seen as wrongdoing, for there is no question whether an ‘option’ is right or wrong.  So ‘options’ counselling seeks to persuade a pregnant woman that abortion is not about morality, but about choice. By presenting abortion as an ‘option’, pro-choice counselling gives a woman the liberty to choose to abort the unborn child.  By labelling abortion an ‘option’ the moral question is pushed out of sight. The issue has been demoralised, and ‘options’ counselling makes it appear that the ‘option’ of abortion and the ‘option’ of continuing with the pregnancy are moral equivalents.  A woman is at liberty to choose either, for ‘options’ counselling legitimises the choice of abortion. 

2.  Non-directive advice

According pro-choice counselling there is no moral distinction between the three options (parenting, adoption, abortion), and therefore a woman must decide for herself which option is right for her and it does not matter which she chooses.  Only the woman can decide what is best for her, what is right in her eyes, and nobody must interfere with her decision.  It is wrong for anyone to attempt to persuade her against abortion—it is wrong for anyone, and especially a pregnancy counsellor, to try and force their moral beliefs on her.  According to pro-choice dogma, to persuade a woman to choose one option above another is ‘moralising’, imposing one’s own moral views on another person.  To tell a woman that abortion is wrong is judgemental.  It follows that abortion counselling must be non-directive and non-judgemental, so that a woman makes her own decision, one with which she feels able to live. And whatever choice she makes, even if the decision is to abort her unborn child, pro-choice counselling supports her decision. 

 3. Morality based on feelings

Pro-choice counselling persuades a woman that her feelings are the best guide to her decision whether or not to go ahead with the option of abortion.  Because there is no objective moral standard to guide her decision-making, a woman must turn to her subjective, changing emotions.  The guiding principle is how she feels about having an abortion.  The most important thing is that she feels comfortable with her decision—that she feels able to live with her decision. Whatever she feels is best for her, whatever feels comfortable, and whatever feels convenient at the time, that is what’s right for her.  In this way a woman is encouraged to believe that her subjective feelings are paramount, and the life of the unborn child is dispensable. 

4.  Informed choice

Pro-choice counselling promotes the idea that the best way for a woman to decide between the options set before her is for her to make an ‘informed choice’.  As there is no objective moral standard to guide her decision making, she is invited to make a rational decision on the basis of factual information.  It is important that she makes her own choice, and is not influenced by judgemental moralising.  She is provided with lots of morally neutral information so that she can weigh up the pros and cons of each option.  In effect she can calculate a profit and loss account to help her decide which options delivers the greatest net benefits.  According to CARE a woman seriously considering abortion is most helpfully assisted by a quiet caring offer to look at all the facts relating to her decision.  ‘Facts and effect of termination can be explored sensitively with the counsellee and counsellor looking at the information together.’[ii]  The more information she has about each option the better chance she has of making a decision she can live with. She makes a pragmatic ‘informed’ choice which is the right one for her.  

 During the last few decades the concept of ‘informed choice’ has become an integral part of virtually all family planning, abortion counselling and sex education programmes worldwide.

 CARE and pro-choice, non-directive, non-judgemental, options counselling

A careful analysis of the advice provided by CARE’s network of pregnancy counselling centres, described in What is going on in Christian Pregnancy Counselling, shows that it exhibits all the essential characteristics of pro-choice dogma. 

 Like pro-choice, CARE’s counselling promises a pregnant woman to help her find out what she wants to do about her pregnancy. Like pro-choice, CARE’s counselling offers a woman three options, including abortion. Like pro-choice, CARE’s counselling is impartial, non-judgemental and non-directive. Like pro-choice, CARE’s counselling encourages a woman to examine her feelings.  A pregnant woman is advised to ‘think about your feelings and values before coming to a decision’.  CARE’s leaflet, Making a Decision, uses the words feel or feelings over twenty times. Like pro-choice, CARE’s counselling helps a woman clarify her personal values. Like pro-choice counsellors, CARE’s counsellors invite a woman to make an ‘informed’ choice between the options that have been set before her.  Like pro-choice counsellors, CARE’s counsellors persuade a woman that the most important thing is that she feels able to live with her choice. Is there, in reality, any difference between the non-directive, non-judgemental options-based counselling of CARE and the pro-choice, non-directive, non-judgemental options-based counselling of BPAS, Planned Parenthood, Pro-choice Connection, National Abortion Federation and Marie Stopes? 

 Many supporters of CARE will be dismayed at the thought that it is being bracketed together with pro-choice abortion organisations.  There is something profoundly wrong here.  Either CARE’s position is being misrepresented or it has departed from the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints and is promoting, or at least condoning, abortion in the name of the Christian Church.  This is a serious accusation that demands an answer.

 CARE’s moral guidance regarding abortion

What moral guidance does CARE give to a woman considering abortion?  CARE’s website provides the answer:

‘An unplanned pregnancy can make us panic.  We want to be in charge of our lives again – this can make us rush into decisions without thinking about our deeper feelings.  For example, ask yourself what your instinctive feelings about caring for a child, abortion and adoption are.  It might be helpful for you to think about how you felt about having a baby, or an abortion or placing a baby for adoption before you found yourself pregnant.  What makes you feel that way?  What’s important to you?  What do you believe is right or wrong?  You might believe that stealing is wrong, but recycling paper is a good thing.  Think about the three options. Are they right or wrong in your eyes? If we do something that we feel is instinctively wrong for us, we may feel negatively about it later.  Do any of the options go against your feelings in this way?’[iii] [My emphasis]

 Here CARE is encouraging a woman to believe that her opinion of right and wrong is important. She is invited to think about the three options and then to decide whether abortion is right or wrong in her eyes.  The inference is that if she believes abortion is right it is an acceptable choice.  So in CARE’s eyes, when it comes to abortion, a woman should be encouraged to do what she feels to be right in her own eyes.  Consistent with this ideology, CARE’s Hull Network Centre helps a woman ‘to search and discover what it is she really wants to do so that her decision is one that is right for her’.[iv]  What CARE is propagating is a morality that is defined according to one’s feelings.

It is not difficult to see that CARE’s approach is based in the philosophy of godless, raw postmodernism, in which each woman has her own view of whether abortion is right for her. In this postmodern view people do not acknowledge any moral absolutes.  The woman who feels justified in aborting her unborn child is therefore unaware of the immoral nature of her action.  The Bible teaches that God’s moral law, declared in God’s word, alone decides right and wrong.  ‘I the Lord, speak the truth; I declare what is right’ (Isaiah 45:19).  Abortion cannot be presented as an option because it is against God’s law.  And so we must face up to these questions: Does CARE’s careless disregard of biblical truth legitimise the choice of abortion?  Is CARE secretly introducing a destructive heresy into the Church?  Is CARE bringing the way of truth into disrepute? (2 Peter 2:1-2).

 CARE’s response to the above critique

CARE affirms the work of pregnancy crisis centres (quoted from CARE’s website)

Our feelings are that the work of the centres are our national free phone help line has been misrepresented and our training materials quoted out of context.  We could enter into a long debate but believe God would have us focus our energies on doing the work He has given us to do – reaching out to women, their families and their unborn children with grace and truth. 

 What is significant is that CARE bases its response on their feelings that the work of their pregnancy centres have been misrepresented and quoted out of context.  CARE makes no attempt to address the substance of the accusation that they are, in fact, a pro-choice counselling organisation.  CARE makes no attempt to deny that its advice is based in situation ethics.  These are serious charges that require a response.  Those who support CARE have a responsibility, before God, to understand whether CARE's non-directive, non-judgemental options counselling is consistent with the gospel of Christ.

CARE’s false teaching

In What is going on in Christian Crisis Pregnancy Counselling? I reach the following conclusion: 

 CARE’s pro-choice ideology is anathema to the Christian faith.  CARE has succeeded in demoralising the issue of abortion.  To promise to a pregnant woman that its counsellors will ‘help you find out what you want to do’[v] with the life of her unborn baby is consistent with the pagan creed ‘do what you will, as long as it harms none’.  Another characteristic of paganism is that it rejects God’s moral law, what it pejoratively refers to as a list of thou-shalt-nots.[vi]  It does not take much insight to see that CARE’s pro-choice ideology, which encourages a woman to do as she wants with her pregnancy, is perfectly consistent with the pagan ethic.  By offering a pregnant woman the option of abortion CARE has legitimised lawlessness.  By giving a pregnant woman non-directive advice regarding her pregnancy, CARE is following the doctrine of moral relativism.  By persuading a woman that her feelings are a guide to what she should do about her pregnancy, CARE is rejecting the word of the Lord.  Taken as a whole, CARE’s ideology is based in amoral postmodernism and CARE is an apostate organisation.

The evidence examined in this booklet suggests that CARE, by presenting its options counselling under the auspices of the Church, and by promising certain forgiveness for those who abort their children, actually encourages women to accept abortion.  CARE cares nothing for the life of the unborn child.  CARE is not a voice for the voiceless, but a voice for the pro-abortion movement.  The Bible warns of the false teachers who have ‘secretly slipped in among you.  They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a licence for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord’ (Jude v4).  And, ‘Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these men oppose the truth – men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned are rejected.  But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone’ (2 Timothy 3:9).

This is an extremely important issue for the evangelical wing of the Christian Church in the UK, for CARE is an organisation that has been born and nurtured in the cradle of evangelical Christianity.  For over a decade CARE’s false teaching has flourished within the bosom of evangelical Christianity. With open arms many evangelical churches have welcomed CARE’s pro-choice dogma and scores of pregnancy counselling centres grown up around evangelical churches.  With open wallets evangelicals have supported CARE’s ministry.  Yet such is the moral compromise that most churches are unable to distinguish between pro-choice counselling and biblical truth.  Where, then, does responsibility lie for CARE’s pro-choice approach to abortion? 

Click here to go to CARE and Situation Ethics