NYC Tests Brakes on Crisis Pregnancy Centers
source: http://www.womensenews.org/story/abortion/101126/nyc-tests-brakes-crisis-pregnancy-centers
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- Womens_eNews
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It was 6:40 p.m. and for more than five hours the women's issues committee of the New York City Council had listened to testimony about a proposed local law--similar to the one passed in Baltimore last year--regulating crisis pregnancy centers.
Crisis pregnancy centers--or CPCs, as everyone was calling them--are sites run by Christian organizations in the United States and around the world.
Depending on your point of view, the centers either browbeat and trick teens and women into maintaining unwanted pregnancies or they offer vulnerable and frightened teens and women kindness, support and loving care.
Those were the two starkly different versions presented at the hearing about the sites, which can be called "pregnancy resource centers," "pregnancy decision health centers," "pregnancy care centers," "women's choice network" and sometimes just "pregnancy centers."
If passed, the city law would require the centers to prominently display--in their facilities, on their Web sites and in ads--disclaimers saying they do not provide abortions, provide contraception or have licensed medical personnel available. It would also require centers to keep confidential the information they gather about their clients.
Supporters say the law is needed for several reasons.
City officials have said that the centers can cause a delay in pre-natal care if pregnant women seeking clinical attention go to the centers looking for that.
Pro-choice advocates want the centers to be more clearly marked so they don't detour women seeking their services. In at least one case, a center had set up shop in the same building and on the same floor as a Planned Parenthood clinic.
At the hearing a social worker for Planned Parenthood said prospective patients were often confused and went to the wrong place--only to be indoctrinated with anti-abortion propaganda.
Read the full account at Women's eNews http://www.womensenews.org/story/abortion/101126/nyc-tests-brakes-crisis-pregnan...
Crisis pregnancy centers--or CPCs, as everyone was calling them--are sites run by Christian organizations in the United States and around the world.
Depending on your point of view, the centers either browbeat and trick teens and women into maintaining unwanted pregnancies or they offer vulnerable and frightened teens and women kindness, support and loving care.
Those were the two starkly different versions presented at the hearing about the sites, which can be called "pregnancy resource centers," "pregnancy decision health centers," "pregnancy care centers," "women's choice network" and sometimes just "pregnancy centers."
If passed, the city law would require the centers to prominently display--in their facilities, on their Web sites and in ads--disclaimers saying they do not provide abortions, provide contraception or have licensed medical personnel available. It would also require centers to keep confidential the information they gather about their clients.
Supporters say the law is needed for several reasons.
City officials have said that the centers can cause a delay in pre-natal care if pregnant women seeking clinical attention go to the centers looking for that.
Pro-choice advocates want the centers to be more clearly marked so they don't detour women seeking their services. In at least one case, a center had set up shop in the same building and on the same floor as a Planned Parenthood clinic.
At the hearing a social worker for Planned Parenthood said prospective patients were often confused and went to the wrong place--only to be indoctrinated with anti-abortion propaganda.
Read the full account at Women's eNews http://www.womensenews.org/story/abortion/101126/nyc-tests-brakes-crisis-pregnan...
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- tags:
- Law, New York, Reproductive Rights
