"There is no right to lie, and pretend to be a health care provider, when someone is not."
Sen. Richard Blumenthal
A new report accuses crisis pregnancy centers of deceptive advertising, and distributing false information about reproductive health to their clients.
You've probably seen the ads -- a picture of a distraught young woman, with the question "pregnant and scared?" and then the words "we can help." These ads are typically placed by faith-based crisis pregnancy centers, or CPCs.
NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut believes these ads are deceitful and a threat to public safety.
"The CPCs in the study do not provide medically accurate, comprehensive services, and instead make every effort to mask their anti-choice agenda," said Stacy Missari, Board Chair for NARAL Pro Choice Connecticut.
NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut's two-year investigation of CPCs in Connecticut revealed some startling statistics -- only eleven percent of the 27 CPCs in Connecticut have actual medical professionals on staff. Seventy percent did not disclose explicitly that they are not a licensed medical facility. None of Connecticut's CPCs offer sexually transmitted infection testing or referrals.
Twenty percent of CPCs actually had volunteer staff wear white lab coats and scrubs to give the impression of being a medical facility.
"There is no right to lie, and pretend to be a health care provider, when someone is not," said U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal.
The study also revealed that 95 percent of crisis pregnancy centers in Connecticut provide misleading and often false claims about abortion. "Telling them that abortion likely causes breast cancer, or severe depression, and even death," said Stacy Missari.
NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut says lawmakers should craft legislation that requires CPCs to honestly disclose the services they provide, while cutting off state funding to facilities that do not offer comprehensive medical services. Emails seeking comment from several Connecticut crisis pregnancy centers were never returned.
