California lawmakers introduced a measure this week that would require a number of crisis pregnancy centers across the state to inform clients about abortion services, instead of manipulating women by whatever means necessary not to terminate pregnancies.
Anti-choice CPCs, many of which notoriously rely on disingenuous tactics to prevent women from seeking abortion care, often set up shop near abortion clinics, but promote misinformation about reproductive healthcare services. But the Reproductive Freedom, Accountability, Comprehensive Care and Transparency (FACT) Act could change that. Via RH Reality Check:
The FACT Act, introduced by Democratic California Assemblymembers David Chiu and Autumn Burke, would require all licensed facilities in the state that “provide family planning and pregnancy-related services to inform patients about available assistance for affordable contraception, abortion, and prenatal care, including how to obtain that assistance,” according to NARAL Pro-Choice California.
The proposal would require facilities without medical licenses that offer similar services to post a notice saying they have neither a license nor licensed providers on staff. CPCs in California are a mix of licensed and unlicensed facilities.
“Thousands of women do not know the legal options they have, or the funding resources available to them,” said the American Nurses Association of California in a written statement during a Tuesday Health Committee hearing on the bill. “This bill will help ensure that pregnant women receive the information they need to make an informed decision.”
The findings from a yearlong NARAL investigation released earlier this year showed that a number of California's many CPCs, which are often funded by taxpayer money (even in states that aren't Florida, contrary to what Jeb Bush might think and say), will use whatever tactics they deem necessary to prevent women from terminating their pregnancies, including outright lying. Advocates of the FACT Act believe the measure could put them one step closer to preventing harmful misinformation.
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