California Cracks Down On Anti-Choice Facilities Posing As Abortion Clinics

Picture by Anna Levinzon via Flickravailable under  by Creative Commons
Picture by Anna Levinzon via Flickr available under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.

California Gov. Jerry Brown approved legislation Friday that will strengthen women’s rights in the state. The bill takes on so-called crisis pregnancy centers, facilities that give the impression they provide pregnant women with non-judgmental counsel. In fact, they are often run by abortion opponents, who use misinformation and scare tactics to talk women out of terminating pregnancies. NARAL Pro-choice America estimates that there are about 4,000 CPCs in America. According to some estimates, crisis pregnancy centers outnumber abortion clinics by a 3:1 ratio nationwide.


The California law would force CPCs to provide information about affordable contraception, abortion and prenatal care. Facilities without license would have to inform clients of their status.

The Golden State’s move to restrict the anti-abortion centers is especially progressive given that elsewhere in the United States, crisis pregnancy centers receive taxpayer money.

Eleven states fund CPCs in some way and one state – South Dakota – even forces women to accept a center’s counsel before she can have an abortion.

Employees at CPCs use vile tactics to convince women that abortions are wrong.

Look at this case:

“An Arizona man whose 16-year-old daughter had been raped took her to a CPC, not realizing that it was an anti-choice fake clinic. After being shown “brutal footage” including pictures of dismembered fetuses, the man claimed that, “they just emotionally raped her. . . . They are advocates for the unborn, and to hell with the troubled person. They had an ax to grind, and just terrorized her.”

A woman who visited a number of CPCs undercover shared her experience on Huffington Post:

“Right as I began to relax, the Q&A took a turn for the personal and invasive. “What is your relationship with your parents like?” “How is your financial situation?” “Have you told the father?” “What is his religion?” “Are his parents religious?” “How many people have you slept with?” “Would your parents be excited about a grandchild?”

“The woman stopped between questions to comment on my answers and lie. “Oh, you’ve taken birth control. Let me tell you how that causes cancer and is the same a medication abortion.” I was told abortion would scar me for the rest of my life — would damage all of my future relationships and leave me “haunted.” I was told the pill could cause breast cancer, that condoms are “naturally porous” and don’t protect against STIs, and that IUDs could kill me. She lectured and lied to me for over an hour before I even received the results of my pregnancy test.”

Labeling these facilities as health care providers, like some conservatives do, is absolutely false. They do not care about their client’s health or right to choice. All they do is aggressively pursue a radical anti-choice agenda that seeks to undermine what the Supreme Court found to be a woman’s right in Roe v. Wade (1973). That didn’t keep Carly Fiorina, Republican presidential candidate, from visiting a CPC in South Carolina in September. That specific facility is known for offering Bible classes for women who do choose to have an abortion and encourages them to name their terminated pregnancies to guilt them. Despite these hateful and appalling practices, Fiorina had the nerve to demand more taxpayer funding for crisis pregnancy centers like that one.


Thank you California for taking this progressive step and exposing CPCs as what they are: bastions of misinformation at the forefront of the war on womens’ reproductive rights.

David Zuther is a high school student currently living in Utah. He is interested in current affairs and believes in social justice, civil liberties and human rights. He is passionate about photography, debating and reading. Follow him on twitter for political news and commentary.