The Freedom From Religion Foundation is praising the city of Hartford, Conn., for seeking to combat faith-based crisis pregnancy centers with a new measure.
Crisis Pregnancy Centers are anti-science clinics that disseminate erroneous and misleading information about abortions to dissuade women from receiving one. Some women are led to believe that they are seeing a licensed medical provider when they are, in fact, being peddled anti-abortion propaganda by religious charlatans. Abortion is a time-sensitive issue, and no time should be delayed accessing the necessary care.
Under a measure headed for the Hartford City Council, the centers in the city would have to disclose whether staff members have medical licenses, and would be fined up to $100 a day for engaging in fraudulent or deceptive advertising.
FFRF applauds this reasonable and ethical clampdown on fallacious, anti-women propaganda and recommends it as a strategy that should be implemented nationally in favor of women’s health.
“All Crisis Pregnancy Centers should have to be transparent about their religious motivations,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Women seeking an abortion have no time to waste on misleading information from unlicensed medical providers.”
Similar legislation was passed by the California General Assembly in 2015, which mandated that anti-abortion centers must divulge whether they lack a medical license.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with roughly 30,000 members and chapters across the country, including members in Connecticut. Its purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
