'Crisis Pregnancy Center’ Tells Woman Her IUD Was A Baby

These places are known to lie & misinform women about reproductive issues but this is just too fkn much. They are bona fide health hazards!

ThinkProgress

When you think about states where women struggle to access reproductive health care, California certainly isn’t the first one that comes to mind. As GOP-controlled states across the country advance dozens of abortion restrictions, the Golden State has pursued the opposite approach, taking unprecedented steps to expand the pool of abortion providers and preserve insurance coverage for abortion.

But that doesn’t mean the anti-choice community isn’t making inroads in other ways. According to a new report released by NARAL Pro-Choice California, the state is grappling with a rise in “crisis pregnancy centers” (CPCs) — right-wing organizations that masquerade as reproductive health clinics in order to dissuade pregnant women from having an abortion.

CPCs advertise themselves as viable alternatives to other women’s health clinics. Their staff members often wear white coats and their waiting rooms look like any other doctor’s office. But these centers are actually strategic players in the anti-choice agenda. They don’t tend to employ medical professionals and don’t offer the full range of reproductive health services; instead, they largely provide biased counseling designed to convince women to continue their pregnancies.

"This is a very underhanded way that the anti-choice movement is able to make progress and interfere with women’s health decisions in a state like California, where they can’t do it through our legislature,” Rebecca Griffin, the assistant director of California Programs at NARAL ...

Across the country, as the number of abortion clinics has dwindled, there’s actually been a rise in the network of CPCs. ...

NARAL Pro-Choice America has conducted undercover investigations in 10 different states...

... “It’s like everyone was trained by one person. I heard the same thing over and over again,” Cristina said.

CPCs are strategic in location; ... target minority communities and tend to set up shop in areas where people may only speak Spanish. ...

... receive inaccurate information at CPCs from employees who aren’t actually trained in reproductive health. ... Cristina asked for an ultrasound at several centers; at two of them, the staff incorrectly identified her IUD as her “baby.” NARAL has also documented repeated instances of CPC employees misleading women about their risk of miscarriage, telling them they don’t need to make a decision about their pregnancy right away because they have up to a 50 percent chance of miscarrying — ...

"I have heard anecdotally from public health officials about problems with women who thought they were getting prenatal care, but then were dropped by CPCs once it was too late for them to have an abortion,” Griffin said. “We do feel like it’s a real public health issue here, ...

More
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/03/13/3633349/crisis-pregnancy-california-report/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tptop3&elq=~~eloqua..type--emailfield..syntax--recipientid~~&elqCampaignId=~~eloqua..type--campaign..campaignid--0..fieldname--id~~&elqaid=24964&elqat=1

•