U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bob Menendez have introduced the “Stop Anti-Abortion Disinformation Act” to combat what they call “false advertising” from crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs).
Following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade on June 24, Warren and Menendez have enlisted the help of pro-abortion organizations, like Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the National Abortion Rights Action League and Power to Decide, to push their claims.
Power to Decide CEO Raegan McDonald-Mosley called the legislation a “critically important bill” and applauded the senators for “working to ensure that everyone has equitable access to the information they need to protect their reproductive autonomy, health and well-being.”
The bill alleges that “CPCs routinely engage in a variety of deceptive tactics, including making false claims about reproductive health care and providers, disseminating inaccurate, misleading, and stigmatizing information about the risks of abortion and contraception, and using illegitimate or false citations to imply that deceptive claims are supported by legitimate medical sources.”
If passed, the bill would authorize the Federal Trade Commission to penalize CPCs that discourage pregnant women from having abortions. Fines of up to $100,000 or half of the parent organizations’ yearly revenues could be levied against the CPCs.
Yet according to the Charlotte Lozier Institute, more than 2 million people received care in 2019 from approximately 2,700 CPCs nationwide—an estimated value of nearly $270 million. Of those 2,700 CPCs, 94% supplied material items, 86% offered parenting/prenatal education, 79% performed ultrasounds and 72% had programs in place to address after-abortion recovery.
Hollywood actress and staunch pro-life advocate Patricia Heaton refuted claims that CPCs harm women.
“No one has ever died from visiting a pregnancy clinic,” she tweeted.
“Our medical pregnancy clinic serves client families for five years, providing superior services for anyone who asks,” she explained in a prior tweet. “We raised $250K for a mobile medical clinic for underserved areas, treating everyone. Because of people like Sen. Warren, we now have to hire armed security.”
Former Planned Parenthood director turned pro-life advocate Abby Johnson also took to Twitter to defend CPCs.
In one tweet, she outlined a hypothetical conversation between a pro-abortion advocate and a pro-life advocate:
“‘You guys are pro-birth. You don’t care about women once they have their babies.’
‘We have over 3,000 pregnancy centers that have given out billions of dollars of materials and resources to help women and their babies.’
‘Oh really? Where are they so we can burn them down.’”
