Posted on 03/31/2006 8:00:30 PM PST by Coleus
(CNSNews.com) - Women seeking information on family planning and abortion would be protected by a "crackdown on deceit" and from "being lured into anti-choice crisis pregnancy centers" if a bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday becomes law. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) was joined by 11 co-sponsors in unveiling the Stop Deceptive Advertising for Women's Services (SDAWS) Act, which would require the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to "enforce truth-in-advertising standards for reproductive centers." Noting that Bush administration funding has provided a "windfall" for such pro-life centers, Maloney said that some of those facilities "have adopted the brazen tactic of advertising and presenting themselves as legitimate family planning centers in order to lure women seeking abortion information and talk them out of getting an abortion."
To prevent this, the new bill would direct the FTC to "create rules that prohibit any organization from advertising services with the intent to deceive the public into believing that the organization is a provider of abortion services if it does not, in fact, provide abortion services." "When women are making a health decision, they should never be subject to deceit and trickery," said Maloney. "Some of these crisis pregnancy centers should be called 'counterfeit pregnancy centers.' They have the right to exist, but they shouldn't have the right to deceive in order to advance their particular beliefs."
"We applaud Rep. Maloney's leadership in support of unbiased, medically accurate information for women," said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. "It's time for Congress to step in and hold fake clinics accountable. "Americans value honesty in advertising, and the so-called crisis pregnancy centers should not be exempt from living up to this basic principle," Keenan added.
Among the bill's co-sponsors were Reps. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and three fellow Democrats from New York state: Maurice Hinchey, Joseph Crowley and Gary Ackerman. The Empire State was the focus of controversy in early 2002, when New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer issued subpoenas alleging that the crisis pregnancy centers "may have violated one or more ... statutes by misrepresenting the services they provide, diagnosing pregnancy and advising persons on medical options without being licensed to do so and/or providing deceptive and inaccurate medical information."
As Cybercast News Service previously reported, the centers -- which often advertise their services only as "abortion alternatives" -- countersued, and a few months later, Spitzer withdrew the subpoenas. At the time, Chris Slattery, founder and director of the Expectant Mother Care facilities in New York City, called Spitzer's tactic an attack on the freedoms of religion and speech Slattery, whose organization is now known as EMC Frontline Pregnancy Centers and operates 15 clinics in the city he calls "the nation's abortion capital," called Maloney's new bill "the opening salvo of a great battle."
"This is clearly a desperate move, as the pro-abortion forces are in a panic over a potential overturn of Roe v. Wade," Slattery told Cybercast News Service. "They're grasping for grassroots fundraising straws to mobilize their militant abortion base. "If the federal government can't even regulate the medical and health practices of the massively dangerous abortion industry, how in God's name can they get into the regulation of advertising to go on a nationwide witch hunt once again to try to cripple and shut down crisis pregnancy centers?" he asked.
"But if we're going to go that way, let's have truth-in-advertising laws that, like cigarette labels, describe every chemical or surgical abortion for what it is: the destruction of human life through a seriously dangerous procedure with short and long-term side-effects," Slattery said. "We have no national abortion clinic regulations in an industry that has killed, since Roe v. Wade, thousands of women," he added. "Yet has Rep. Maloney, who's so concerned about women's health, proposed any bills to warn women of the health risks associated with abortion? No, not at all. "It's surprising that it's taken them so long to try and counteract us," Slattery admitted, "but we're going to fight back as aggressively as we did in '02 and give these folks an absolute run for their money. "We will fight for our right to reach abortion-minded women with the truth that expectant mothers do not get at the abortion clinics in New York and across America," he added.
See Earlier Stories:
Pro-Lifers Cry Foul in NY Attorney General's Probe (Jan. 08, 2002)
NY Crisis Pregnancy Centers Launch Counterattack Against AG (Feb. 14, 2002)
Subpoenas Yanked, But Crisis Pregnancy Centers Warn Battle Not Over (March 01, 2002)
Make media inquiries or request an interview with Randy Hall.
Oh, those naughty pro life people! Never know where they will show up to save innocent lives!
I have read about this in the Village Voice and NY Magazine. These women worry about whether their "guests" will steal from them showing them to be the classists and racists that they really are.
This proposed bill will go nowhere.
Law and Order absolutely stinks. They continue to bash devout Christians and Orthodox Jews. Their bigotry is mind boggling. Time to yank that rotten show from the screen.
Maloney is obsessed with kiling more babies. Her website has "breast feeding" as a topic. I guess she wants women to breast feed animals since she wants them to kill their children.
Birth rates are far below replacement levels among Whites in Europe.
This is one reason why they cannot end Muslim immigration.
They will need someone to pay for their generous benefits in the future.
Socialism kills in more ways than one.
Most pregnancy crisis centers don't advertise themselves as "family planning clinics". I worked for one for quite a few years and shared resources with others in the state. None of them advertised in this manner. Of course, the one I worked for and the others we affiliated ourselves with were faith based (Christian) so we were very upfront about what we were and what our goal was.
Would love to see sonogram machines operating just 2 doors down from every abortion clinic with a sign that reads "free sonograms to any pregnant mom" and watch the fireworks from the lib murderers!
Please FreepMail me if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.
Good idea. I wonder if we could get a group to do that?
Thank you for the ping. It's very Clintonesque, this tactic. By God's grace in Christ to this fallen world the evil one will be caught in the trap set by his own hands. Amen.
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