Skip to content
Center for Reproductive Rights
Center for Reproductive Rights

Primary Menu

  • About
    • Overview
    • The Center’s Impact
    • Center Leadership & Staff
    • Annual Reports
    • Corporate Engagement
    • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
    • Careers
    • Contact Us
  • Work
    • Overview
    • Litigation
    • Legal Policy and Advocacy
    • Resources & Research
    • Recent Case Highlights
    • Landmark Cases
    • Cases Archive
    • World’s Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
  • Issues
    • Overview
    • Abortion
    • Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
    • Assisted Reproduction
    • Contraception
    • Humanitarian Settings
    • Maternal Health
    • COVID-19
  • Regions
    • Overview
    • Global Advocacy
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Europe
    • Latin America and the Caribbean
    • United States
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Stories
    • Events
    • Center in the Spotlight
    • Press Releases
    • Statements
    • Press Room
    • Newsletters
  • Resources
    • Resources & Research
    • U.S. Abortion Rights: Resources
    • Maps
    • World Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
    • Repro Red Flags: Agency Watch
  • Act
    • Overview
    • Give
    • Act
    • Learn
  • Donate
    • Become a Monthly Donor
    • Make a Donor Advised Fund Gift
    • Leave a Legacy Gift
    • Donate Gifts of Stock
    • Give a Gift in Honor
    • Attend an Event
    • Employee Matching Gifts
    • Mail a Check
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
Donate
icon-hamburger icon-magnifying-glass Donate
icon-magnifying-glass-teal

Next Stop in the Battle to End the Bait-and-Switch of Crisis Pregnancy Centers

Center for Reproductive Rights - Center for Reproductive Rights - search logo
search Close Close icon
Center for Reproductive Rights -
Menu Close Menu Close icon
Donate

Primary Menu

  • About
    • Overview
    • The Center’s Impact
    • Center Leadership & Staff
    • Annual Reports
    • Corporate Engagement
    • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
    • Careers
    • Contact Us
  • Work
    • Overview
    • Litigation
    • Legal Policy and Advocacy
    • Resources & Research
    • Recent Case Highlights
    • Landmark Cases
    • Cases Archive
    • World’s Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
  • Issues
    • Overview
    • Abortion
    • Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
    • Assisted Reproduction
    • Contraception
    • Humanitarian Settings
    • Maternal Health
    • COVID-19
  • Regions
    • Overview
    • Global Advocacy
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Europe
    • Latin America and the Caribbean
    • United States
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Stories
    • Events
    • Center in the Spotlight
    • Press Releases
    • Statements
    • Press Room
    • Newsletters
  • Resources
    • Resources & Research
    • U.S. Abortion Rights: Resources
    • Maps
    • World Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
    • Repro Red Flags: Agency Watch
  • Act
    • Overview
    • Give
    • Act
    • Learn
  • Donate
    • Become a Monthly Donor
    • Make a Donor Advised Fund Gift
    • Leave a Legacy Gift
    • Donate Gifts of Stock
    • Give a Gift in Honor
    • Attend an Event
    • Employee Matching Gifts
    • Mail a Check
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn

Related Content

Issues:

Abortion, Anti-Choice Harassment, Legal Protections

Regions:

United States

Work:

In the Courts

Type:

News, Story

Case Archive

For updates on Center cases, explore our case archive here.

Follow the Center

Donate Now

Join Now

03.23.2012

In the Courts Abortion United States News

Next Stop in the Battle to End the Bait-and-Switch of Crisis Pregnancy Centers

Justin Goldberg

Share

  • facebook
  • Twitter
  • linkedin
  • Email id
https://reproductiverights.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/CPC_Bal_Feat_Image.jpg

Every year, tens of thousands of women are lured to crisis pregnancy centers in the U.S. They go having made a difficult decision to have an abortion, believing they will get the help they need. Instead, they are battered with false medical information, distortions of the truth, and blatant propaganda. Too often, they leave traumatized.



Today, the Center for Reproductive Rights is in court intent on stopping crisis pregnancy centers in Baltimore from subjecting women to those deceptive abuses.



It begins with advertising, often the wellspring of chicanery. “These centers advertise on the Internet, in college newspapers, in telephone books saying they provide abortion services or counseling or free pregnancy tests,” says Suzanne Sangree, the Chief Solicitor in the city of Baltimore’s Law Department who is working with the Center on this case. “Many women, especially young, undereducated women, think they can get help.”



But they don’t. Women who have made their choice too often find themselves in a setting that is more playhouse than medical office. “These centers are set up to look like clinics,” says Sangree. “There’s a waiting room, the staff members are dressed in lab coats, and you’re ushered into an exam room.” At this point, most women are confused. “It might take quite a while to figure out, no, this is not a medical office, and I can’t get access to abortion here.”



City officials in Baltimore decided this kind of subterfuge was harmful to women. And it didn’t stop in the office. Having obtained women’s name, address, and home phone number, staff members have been known to call pregnant women saying, “Don’t kill your baby.”



Baltimore was the first city in the nation to pass legislation requiring these centers to disclose that they neither referred nor offered abortion services. (Austin, TX, Montgomery County, MD, New York City, and San Francisco have since enacted similar measures to curb the deceptive practices of these centers.) The Catholic Archbishop of Baltimore, along with Greater Baltimore Center for Pregnancy Concerns, Inc., filed a federal lawsuit and won the first round. The Center is working with Baltimore city officials to reverse that decision and win landmark protections for women from false advertising tactics used across the country-and from the great risks to women’s health and well-being that comes with this dishonesty.



The church’s claim that the law violates free speech is hollow. This isn’t about free speech at all, it’s about deception. As Stephanie Toti, a senior staff attorney at the Center, recently told the Nation: “The ordinance does not in any way regulate what kind of services a pregnancy center must offer, nor does it regulate how a pregnancy center may discuss the topics of abortion or birth control with consumers. It merely prevents pregnancy centers from lying to consumers about whether they provide abortion or birth control services.”



Those lies can have devastating consequences. Just a few months ago, Jezebel ran a first-person account of a shocking story that—outrageously—happens to too many women across the United States every day.



Today is the next step in a battle to which the Center is fully committed. We won’t know for some time if we were successful in this stage, but we do know we will not ease up until women are protected and given the truth to which they have every right.


Related Posts

Azar v. Garza Amicus Brief

Abortion,United States,In the Courts

Complaint: Falls Church Healthcare Center et al. v. Norman Oliver et al.

Abortion,United States,In the Courts

Amicus Brief: State of California et al. v. Alex M. Azar et al.

Other Barriers, Contraception,United States,In the Courts

Sign up for email updates.

The most up-to-date news on reproductive rights, delivered straight to you.

Footer Menu

  • Careers
  • Privacy Policy
  • Gift Acceptance Policy
  • Contact Us

Center for Reproductive Rights
© (1992-2024)

Use of this site signifies agreement with our disclaimer and privacy policy.

Better Business Bureau Charity Watch Top Rated Center for Reproductive Rights
This site uses necessary, analytics and social media cookies to improve your experience and deliver targeted advertising. Click "Options" or click here to learn more and customize your cookie settings, otherwise please click "Accept" to proceed.
OPTIONSACCEPT
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
CookieDurationDescription
_ga2 yearsThis cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data and keep track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookies store information anonymously and assign a randomly generated number to identify unique visitors.
_gat_UA-6619340-11 minuteNo description
_gid1 dayThis cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to store information of how visitors use a website and helps in creating an analytics report of how the wbsite is doing. The data collected including the number visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages viisted in an anonymous form.
_parsely_session30 minutesThis cookie is used to track the behavior of a user within the current session.
HotJar: _hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress30 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjFirstSeen30 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjid1 yearThis cookie is set by Hotjar. This cookie is set when the customer first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the random user ID, unique to that site on the browser. This ensures that behavior in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID.
HotJar: _hjIncludedInPageviewSample2 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjIncludedInSessionSample2 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjTLDTestsessionNo description
SSCVER1 year 24 daysThe domain of this cookie is owned by Nielsen. The cookie is used for online advertising by creating user profile based on their preferences.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
CookieDurationDescription
_fbp3 monthsThis cookie is set by Facebook to deliver advertisement when they are on Facebook or a digital platform powered by Facebook advertising after visiting this website.
fr3 monthsThe cookie is set by Facebook to show relevant advertisments to the users and measure and improve the advertisements. The cookie also tracks the behavior of the user across the web on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin.
IDE1 year 24 daysUsed by Google DoubleClick and stores information about how the user uses the website and any other advertisement before visiting the website. This is used to present users with ads that are relevant to them according to the user profile.
IMRID1 year 24 daysThe domain of this cookie is owned by Nielsen. The cookie is used for storing the start and end of the user session for nielsen statistics. It helps in consumer profiling for online advertising.
personalization_id2 yearsThis cookie is set by twitter.com. It is used integrate the sharing features of this social media. It also stores information about how the user uses the website for tracking and targeting.
TDID1 yearThe cookie is set by CloudFare service to store a unique ID to identify a returning users device which then is used for targeted advertising.
test_cookie15 minutesThis cookie is set by doubleclick.net. The purpose of the cookie is to determine if the user's browser supports cookies.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
CookieDurationDescription
adEdition1 dayNo description
akaas_MSNBC10 daysNo description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional1 yearThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others1 yearNo description
geoEdition1 dayNo description
next-i18next1 yearNo description
SAVE & ACCEPT
Powered by CookieYes Logo
Scroll Up