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CLARA JEFFERY’S ARTICLE on fake clinics (“Abort, Retry, Fail?,” 10/15) illuminates the serious problem with fake clinics which has received very little attention from the public or lawmakers.
A Woman’s Choice is one of far too many propaganda offices in this area which masquerade as reproduction health clinics. They do not provide accurate medical information or services. They prey on women who, fearful of an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy, want and need reliable counseling.
Locally, these fake clinics are presently beyond the reach of the law. Last year, at the urging of Planned Parenthood, the Virginia General Assembly gave very serious consideration to legislation which would protect women seeking medical services while safeguarding the rights of anti-abortion groups. The bill would simply have required clinics like A Woman’s Choice to make, in writing, an upfront disclosure to anyone walking through the door—informing the woman who thinks she is entering a clinic that she is not in a medical facility, that she will not receive either medically accepted information about abortion or, if she is pregnant, be referred to an abortion provider.
The bill did not pass. Hopefully your excellent article will help spur the General Assembly next year to protect women against unscrupulous anti-choice proselytizers who use fake medical clinics as a way to mislead and deceive.
Rosann Wisman, President, Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington D.C., Dupont Circle