A counseling session covertly recorded by a reproductive rights advocate from NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia reveals, once again, the kind of dubious information and baldfaced lies staff members at these anti-choice centers are passing off as legitimate medical advice.
Excerpts from the exchange:
- Condoms are “naturally porous” and do not protect against STDs
- Women who have taken the birth-control pill for four years prior to their first pregnancy have a 46% increased risk of breast cancer
- Having an abortion will damage all of your future relationships
- If you have an abortion, you will see that child’s soul again in the future: “At the end of the world you’re gonna know that was my child that I choose to kill”
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is a strong supporter of crisis pregnancy centers (Credit: AP)
Ken Cuccinelli
Using medical misinformation and anti-choice sermonizing to pressure women out of exercising the full range of their reproductive health options is standard operating procedure at these centers. The audio recorded in Virginia is deeply troubling, but nearly identical to scripts used at these centers elsewhere the country, as Katie Stack, a 24-year-old reproductive rights advocate noted in a New York Times editorial about her own experience with a crisis pregnancy counselor in Iowa:
via Salon.com.