The real trouble with fake women’s health centers

A perfect example of the important role of the courts in our daily lives is playing out right now in the U.S. Supreme Court with National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA) v. Becerra. This important case will determine if the First Amendment’s free speech clause allows anti-abortion counseling centers in Florida, and across the nation, to deceive women.

The case involves fake women’s health centers or “crisis pregnancy centers” as they like to call themselves. These entities pose as clinics, but are generally run by antiabortion, often religious organizations, that target pregnant women, particularly those seeking abortion care. The Supreme Court is reviewing a California law that requires unlicensed fake clinics to disclose their lack of a license. In cases where limited medical services are provided under a license, a woman must be provided with information on where she can alternatively access a full range of publicly-funded reproductive health services — including birth control and abortion.

The case is germane to Florida because the state Legislature just passed, and Gov. Rick Scott signed into law, a bill which permanently funds with taxpayer dollars these fake women’s health centers that deceive women and jeopardize their health.

There are many harmful tactics these fake women’s health centers are known to engage in to mislead pregnant women. These include deceptive websites and advertising, placing their businesses near real women’s health centers to lure women in, designing interiors to look like a real medical facility, delaying care in order to force women past deadlines for abortion, pushing medically unnecessary ultrasounds on pregnant women, and outright harassment of women considering an abortion. Staff members at fake clinics are even known to provide women medically false claims that abortion causes breast cancer, infertility and psychological trauma.

As the state of California has argued, “A woman who seeks advice and care during pregnancy needs certain basic information to make informed decisions and obtain appropriate, timely medical care . . . . . [S]he needs to know whether the entity she is dealing with is in fact a state-licensed clinic staffed with regulated professionals. And . . . she needs to know that there are state resources available to access additional care if she wishes to do so.”

Gov. Scott and his allies should follow California’s lead and regulate these harmful fake women’s health centers rather than using our tax dollars to prop up their deceit.

A woman who is pregnant expects and deserves unbiased advice from a real medical provider, but these places instead manipulate and mislead women with misinformation, guilt and shame. Right now, there are at least 120 of these fake clinics in Florida, nearly double the number of legitimate, women’s health centers offering advice and support on the full range of reproductive health options.

The California law regulating fake women’s clinics is hardly an outlier when it comes to protecting consumers from deceptive business practices. States require licensure and posting of notices for all manner of businesses, from auto repair shops to nursing homes to nail salons. When fake women’s health centers’ habit of using deceptive practices is considered, requiring them to post they are not licensed providers, or to post the availability of comprehensive care available elsewhere, seems especially reasonable.

The staff and volunteers at these fake women’s health centers, who are typically untrained individuals posing as medical professionals, have every right to express their opinions and agenda. But the Supreme Court needs to draw a line in the sand when it comes to deceiving women, peddling medical falsehoods and delaying access to comprehensive reproductive care.

A woman who is pregnant expects and deserves unbiased advice from a real medical provider.