In fact, maternity group homes are still with us, albeit in new forms. Some are publicly-funded social service programs that provide much-needed housing to homeless pregnant minors. Others are small private facilities nestled in communities all over the United States, often run according to what their proprietors describe as "Biblical principles." Some group homes are allied with adoption agencies. Others, like the New Hope home bear a greater resemblance to expensive "boot camp" boarding schools than to social service agencies.
The anti-abortion movement has taken a major interest in maternity group homes as part of its commitment to support women who choose to carry their pregnancies to term. As they often point out, a real choice means not just access to abortion, but support to follow through on a pregnancy.
When most people think of maternity homes, they envision the large institutions where young women would go to have their babies in secret and give them up for adoption.
"Maternity group homes today are very different from the large institutional settings that held 30-50 women who went to have their babies in secret," said Peggy Heartshorn, Heartbeat International, a network of over 1000 "pro-life pregnancy resource centers," many of which have links to maternity group homes.
Heartshorn explained that a lot of those large older homes closed down after Roe v. Wade made abortion widely available. The maternity homes of old were heavily slanted towards adoption, whereas today's mothers are more likely to enroll in a maternity home because they have chosen to parent, Heartshorn said.
Heartbeat International has identified over 300 maternity homes nationwide, but president Heartshorn says she wouldn't even hazard a guess as to how many are actually out there.
In place of the large institutions, a variety of public and private financing for pregnant and parenting teens has arisen. A few states administer their own maternity group homes.
Today's maternity group homes tend to be much smaller, typically housing between six and ten clients at a time. Some just house women for the duration of the pregnancy, others allow mothers to continue living in the home after the baby is born. Homes are more likely to offer heavily structured programs that may include life skills, high school coursework, and Lamaze classes.
Maternity homes got a second look from federal legislators during the welfare reforms of the 1990s. Under the new rules, pregnant teens ceased to be eligible for welfare benefits unless they were living with their families. So-called "second chance" homes were created to provide a stable living environment for pregnant minors who couldn't live with their families.
In 2003 Congress changed the federal Runaway and Homeless Youth Act legislation to make maternity group homes eligible for funding through the Transitional Living Program for homeless youth. Approximately $10 million per year is set aside for maternity group homes. Of the transitional living programs funded in 2004 and 2005, 19 identified themselves as maternity group homes. Maternity homes are also eligible for funding through the Administration for Housing and Urban Development. Some homes receive support from state and local governments.
Private donations and user fees are critical sources of revenue for many homes, especially for the smaller religious maternity homes. Even homes that proudly refuse direct public funding apply for federal benefits for their clients, including food stamps and Medicaid.
Private boarding schools for pregnant teens may charge upwards of $2,500 per month in tuition.
One private maternity home owns a coffee shop where residents work, which it says provides job training for the clients. Another home owns a flower shop where clients work.
Maternity group homes vary widely in terms of admission criteria. Most publicly-funded programs serve teenagers and homeless women. Many private religious maternity homes exclusively serve adults. Some programs explicitly state that they do not cater to women who are fleeing domestic violence or struggling with substance abuse.
It is not uncommon for residents to have to commit in writing to carry their pregnancies to term.
The old adoption model isn't dead yet. Some homes are arms of adoption agencies. Some facilities explicitly offer accommodations with the understanding that residents will give their babies up for adoption.
One program sums up its attitude on its website:
While no one is coerced or pressured to make an adoption plan for their baby, this is a home for women who are making that choice. Respect for this choice is expected and if you decide a parenting plan is your best option, we will work with you to find alternate housing arrangements.
The darker side of private religious maternity group homes is aggressive proselytizing coupled with house rules that treat clients like inmates.
These women are not ill, and they are not criminals—indeed, many programs stipulate these criteria as conditions of admission. Yet, many programs appear to be founded on the premise that these women need intensive "treatment" and counseling simply because they are unwed mothers.
In exchange for help, young women may have to accept controversial theological teachings. One Ohio-based home tells prospective residents: "Abortion is wrong. Harbor House will do everything possible within the law to prevent abortion," and "Single-parenting does not fit God's perfect plan for the family."
The New Life Maternity Home in Warren, Ohio describes sexual purity as the "keystone" of its program. New Life is not the only program that includes abstinence-only sex education as part of its educational programming.
Many homes physically isolate the young women and limit their communications with friends and family. The underlying assumption is that an unwed mother needs to be taken out of the negative environment that led to her getting pregnant in the first place.
Harbor House does not allow residents to have telephone contact for 2 full weeks. The women are not allowed to have visitors for their first 3 weeks in the program. The staff reserves the right to read and confiscate mail without prior notice. The Alpha Omega Miracle Home in Florida doesn't allow any phone calls or visits for the first month.
Many private maternity homes forbid residents to go off campus un-escorted.
One program has a blanket "no contact with males rule." It is not uncommon for clients to be forbidden to interact with the fathers of their children while they are in the program. Some maternity homes allow the father to be present as a labor coach during delivery, but others expressly forbid it.
Many maternity group homes provide badly needed assistance to a vulnerable population. However, there is also reason to fear that some young women are being subjected to a variety of coercions under the guise of "choice."
]]>Appointed by President George W. Bush in late 2006 as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, Dr. Eric J. Keroack resigned unexpectedly in March of this year after Massachusetts officials launched a formal investigation into allegations of Medicaid fraud during his tenure in private practice.
Medicaid is a state-federal health program for the poor.
Although as an appointee he quickly became mired in controversy over his opposition to birth control, abortion and comprehensive sex education, newly obtained documents show that from the start Dr. Keroack was far from qualified to head the federal women’s health program.
As Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs, Dr. Keroack was responsible for a $283 million budget and charged with running a federal agency overseeing women’s health issues such as screening for cervical and breast cancer, contraception planning, pregnancy counseling and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases. However, a RAW STORY investigation has found that Keroack either misled the Bush administration about his background or was appointed regardless of his record and with little vetting.
HHS officials repeatedly cited Keroack’s long tenure in private practice as one of his key qualifications, along with his highly publicized role as medical director for a chain of Christian pregnancy centers.
According to the Washington Post, “Eric Keroack, a nationally known advocate of abstinence until marriage, served for more than a decade as medical director for A Woman’s Concern, a Massachusetts nonprofit group that discourages abortion and does not distribute information promoting birth control. But HHS spokeswoman Christina Pearson said yesterday that most of Keroack’s professional time had been devoted to his private practice of 20 years, not the group.”
Documents and interviews with Keroack’s associates, however, show that the post of medical director was merely a part-time or volunteer job. Keroack’s claims of an extensive private practice also appear dubious.
Administration vaunted bogus credentials
Records from the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine show that Dr. Keroack did not finish his residency in obstetrics and gynecology until 1993. This means he could not possibly have practiced obstetrics for 20 years.
In addition, according to the Post, Dr. Keroack’s board certification as an OBGYN, which would have been good for ten years, had lapsed in 2005, a full year before his appointment. As a result, Keroack’s tenure in private practice as a board-certified OB-GYN at the time of his appointment could have been no more than 10 years.
Documents obtained by RAW STORY suggest that Keroack may have been in practice even less time.
When Dr. Keroack took stewardship of Population Affairs in 2006, Massachusetts’ medical licensing board had already spent roughly a year reviewing a complaint that he had violated ethical norms by prescribing medications for people who weren’t his patients, had practiced outside of his area of specialty and had attempted to defraud the insurance system.
Massachusetts medical board spokesman Randal Aims said late last week that when a complaint is filed against a physician, the doctor is allowed to respond in writing. In Keroack’s Sept. 18, 2005 response, in which he defended himself against the allegation that he was not qualified to provide counseling, he indicated that he had not been in practice for “over 5-years.”
“As you might expect, the fact that it has been over 5-years [sic] since I took a leave from my direct practice of clinical medicine in the North Shore area has made the location of some of the individual single session C.M.E. lectures quite difficult,” he wrote. “I confess to being less than perfect when it comes to long-term personal record keeping.”
This indicates that as of 2005, Keroack had withdrawn from practicing clinical medicine at least five years earlier, suggesting that the duration of his tenure in private practice was roughly five years.
The same document also includes Dr. Keroack’s admission that he has no proof that he completed the Continuing Medical Education modules required to maintain his medical license.
HHS spokewoman Christine Pearson told the Post Keroack “inadvertently missed the recertification deadline” and “plans to seek recertification in the future.”
Records show that Keroack also let another professional certification lapse in 2005. The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology’s director of membership services, Bernice Jones, confirmed in a letter that Keroack’s membership in the College had lapsed in July, 2005.
RAW STORY asked Pearson to respond concerning these discrepancies between Dr. Keroack’s background and the public profile presented by HHS and to provide his official biography and any press releases or statements regarding his hiring, his term in office or his resignation. Responding via email, Pearson indicated that she’d never seen a copy of Dr. Keroack’s resume.
“I have never had a copy of his resume nor am I aware of any press releases, pre-hiring announcements or press releases pertaining to his acts while he was in office,” Pearson wrote.
Asked to explain how she knew how long Dr. Keroack had been in practice, Pearson explained that he had personally told her of his qualifications.
Another HHS spokesperson, Rebecca Ayer, said that HHS had never had an official biography for Dr. Keroack, but provided assurances that he had gone through the “standard hiring process.”
Saying she could not comment further on personnel issues due to the Privacy Act, Ayer suggested this reporter file a Freedom of Information Request.
Medical directorship was part-time or volunteer job
The controversy over Dr. Keroack’s association with A Woman’s Concern and his particular views with regard to women’s health in the wake of his appointment may have overshadowed deeper issues regarding his actual background.
A Woman’s Concern’s tax records show no mention of him during the six-year period he was supposed to have been the medical director. As a non-profit, AWC is required to list all employees and contractors who are paid more than $50,000 per year.
Mark Conrad, the president of A Woman’s Concern, said that Dr. Keroack was only a part-time volunteer with the organization and simultaneously rented an office at one of their facilities.
Former Woman’s Concern president Rev. Ensor, who led the organization during most of Keroack’s tenure, gave a different account.
“Was he paid? Sure he was paid,” Ensor said. “Some seasons he volunteered, and sometimes we paid him.”
Dr. Keroack’s private practice address during this period shows him at 103 Broadway in Revere, MA – in the same building as one of the AWC pregnancy centers. Both Conrad and Ensor agree that the doctor rented space from AWC but has now terminated his lease with the clinic. The phone number for Keroack’s office at that facility is disconnected.
The business address Dr. Keroack lists on his physician profile is in Marblehead, Mass. The phone number is registered in the name of D. Merrick and was shown by additional background checks to be located at yet another address in Marblehead, 5 Orchard Circle.
Real estate records indicate that 5 Orchard Circle is a single-family home owned by Eric J. Keroack. It is not clear who owns or lives at or practices out of the second Marblehead address.
RAW STORY made repeated calls to the phone the number listed in the physician profile. During one such call, a woman answered the phone. She did not identify herself but did confirm that the number belonged to Dr. Keroack and that there was no office or other number by which he could be reached. Subsequent calls to the number yielded an answering machine message that strongly suggested the number was a residential line and not a doctor’s office.
Moreover, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Secretary of State’s office said they have no record of Keroack “registering to run an office-based practice in the state.”
Dr. Keroack did not return repeated phone calls and emails seeking comment.
Keroack’s abrupt resignation
Dr. Keroack announced in late March of this year that he was resigning to defend himself against allegations of Medicaid fraud levied against his clinical practice. It is not clear whether the Medicaid investigation he was referring to was sparked by the ethical complaints filed with the medical board against him during his dual role as a private practice gynecologist and volunteer at A Woman’s Concern.
It’s possible that there are other complaints against Keroack that have yet to be resolved. Massachusetts board spokesman Russell Aims told RAW STORY that as of January, 2007, two earlier complaints against Keroack’s license had been resolved. Aims, however, stressed that medical licensing authorities in Massachusetts are prohibited from acknowledging the existence of unresolved claims still pending against a physician’s license.
Though he has no formal research credentials, Dr. Keroack has lectured widely from a PowerPoint presentation that uses Loony Tunes characters to illustrate his theory that premarital sex damages the female brain, making non-abstinent women incapable of forming emotional bonds.
Keroack’s highly unorthodox medical views had originally cast doubt on his qualifications to serve as the nation’s birth control czar. His appointment did not require confirmation from Congress.
This story originally appeared on The Raw Story.
]]>