ALEXANDRIA

This is a time where I ask us to put aside our disagreements and instead focus on making sure that women facing unintended pregnancies aren't deceived, scared, or lied to in order to promote a political or ideological agenda. We can all agree that women deserve access to real information on which to base medical decisions. The women of the commonwealth deserve our respect and the truth so they can make responsible decisions.

However, all across the commonwealth, thanks to crisis pregnancy centers, there are women who are making decisions about unintended pregnancies based on lies, misinformation, and scare tactics.

That is why NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia launched a yearlong investigation into the commonwealth's crisis pregnancy centers. There is no desire to shut them down, no ill-will toward the services that some of them provide with honesty and transparency. Rather, this investigation set out to determine if women, in difficult and often vulnerable situations, are entrusted with real information to make educated decisions about their own reproductive health and futures. Sadly, the answer is an overwhelming, "No."

Thirty-five of the crisis pregnancy centers in Virginia were found to share dishonest, deceptive, and medically inaccurate information with clients. These centers promote themselves as medical facilities when the majority do not have a licensed medical provider on staff. They advertise with the lure of a "free pregnancy test" yet they fail to mention their abstinence-only, anti-choice agendas. They also claim to uphold strict client confidentiality yet they do not follow HIPAA standards and violate client trust.