NYC council introduces legislation to make anti-choice 'pregnancy centers' own up, up front

[BurtWorm]

From Lindsay Beyerstein at Big Think:

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bigthink/blogs/focal-point/~3/fBWpu6xNKDQ/24450

Excellent: City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Councilwoman Jessica S. Lappin (D) have introduced legislation to require so-called "crisis pregnancy centers" in New York City to disclose that they are not full-service reproductive health centers.

CPCs are self-proclaimed sub-specialty of the anti-choice movement. If these facilities were upfront about the fact that they only provide anti-abortion counseling and services for women who intend to carry unplanned pregnancies to term, no one would object. However, their modus operandi is to mimic full-service reproductive health centers in order to lure women who haven't yet made up their minds.

If you go to a CPC, you will not get standard medical advice on abortion and alternatives. You will get CPC-specific propaganda that drastically overstates the risks of abortion complications. What's insidious about CPCs is that instead of just honestly presenting their moral arguments about why they think abortion is wrong, they feel compelled to peddle pseudoscience to about abortion and breast cancer to women who wouldn't otherwise be convinced. They usurp the credibility of the health care system to manipulate innocent people who are in no position to independently check their claims.

Not that the average CPC attendant knows any better. CPCs are more likely to be staffed by volunteers than health care professionals. Most are more storefronts than clinics. They promise free pregnancy tests, which are the same kind you can buy over the counter.

The proposed legislation was spurred in part by a major investigation by NARAL Pro-Choice New York that exposed deceptive practices by local CPCs. An earlier investigation by the New York State Attorney General's office in 2002 found that CPCs routinely engaged in deceptive advertising and business practices designed to make women think that they were accessing mainstream health care facilities.

...

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. Good. At least one city is doing something against this evil.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

2. I think that is a fantastic idea --

I cannot STAND their deceptive practive of luring often times vulnerable women into their "clinics" for a free pregnancy test then showing them graphic, unsourced abortion footage. That shit sets me off. :mad: