Lilith Fair Drops Pregnancy Centers From Charity List, Keeps Abortion Business
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 2, 2010
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Four days after it first received national attention for including crisis pregnancy centers in its list of potential charity recipients, organizers of the typically pro-abortion Lilith Fair dropped them from consideration. Officials also dropped a pro-abortion group but kept another and kept a group of maternity homes.
Organizers brought the popular 1990s tour back this year and the Summer 2010 Lilith Fair team announced a "Choose Your Charity" campaign through which Facebook users are able to vote from a pre-selected group of charities.
They would receive $1 for every ticket sold in each concert city — potentially generating tens of thousands of dollars for charities involved.
To the surprise of pro-life advocates, the Lilith Fair team included pregnancy centers in the mix of groups. No more.
The pro-abortion RH Reality Check blog indicates Lilith Fair dropped all of the pregnancy centers from consideration and the NARAL North Carolina affiliate. However, it kept the Feminist Women’s Health Center in Atlanta, Georgia.
The maternity homes Lilith Fair previously included — Maggie’s Place in Phoenix, Arizona, Mother’s Refuge in Kansas City, Missouri, and Our Lady’s Inn and The Haven of Grace, both located in St. Louis — remain on the list as well.
RHRC posted a statement from Becky Smith and Katie Blair, two pro-abortion activists who launched a campaign to get Lilith Fair to remove the pregnancy centers from the charity list.
They claimed 1,200 pro-abortion activists contacted Lilith officials to complain and they confirmed the removal, saying, "We have seen the removal of the CPCs in each of the cities we listed – Minneapolis, Indianapolis, and Atlanta" and calling the removal a "victory."
They also thanked Lilith co-founder Terry McBride for removing the pregnancy centers and he previously emailed Smith saying, “It’s become clear that we need to set a criteria which we will shortly release that will resolve many of the issues.”
Fans in Minneapolis and Indianapolis were previously given the option of supporting Metro Women’s Center and Indianapolis Life Center — both are life-affirming pregnancy centers that help women find abortion alternatives and legitimate pregnancy support. Other cities such as Atlanta and Seattle also saw pregnancy centers selected.
McBride previously told the Chicago Reader newspaper how they were selected.
"The seeding at the start was done with a basic digital search in each market of woman’s charities," he told the reader. "It’s not perfect. Nor could it be, as we simply don’t have the local expertise even within our own city of Vancouver."
He explained that little research was done beyond examining the names of groups with federal taxpayer IDs
Ultimately, McBride said local Lilith Fair organizers will choose the charity recipients.
"The Lilith founders — Sarah McLachlan, Terry McBride, Dan Fraser and Marty Diamond — will hand pick the local charity winners from the top three charities with the most votes in each city," the festival’s web site says.
That likely means the pregnancy centers would likely have been left out anyway.
ACTION: Complain to Lilith Tour officials at
https://www.facebook.com/lilithfairtour or https://www.twitter.com/lilithfair
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