Protesting fake women’s clinics

GREENSBORO, N.C.--A protest organized by CPC Watch, a group that identifies fake women's health clinics, brought out about 40 people to counter a fundraiser for the "Pregnancy Care Center."

Crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) pose as disinterested health clinics for women contemplating their reproductive choices, yet they push an anti-abortion agenda with misinformation about pregnancy and contraception.

As the CPC Watch Web site notes, "CPCs are not medical clinics, but instead an appendage of the anti-choice camp with a mission to enact control over a women's bodies and limit decisions. Many staff no medical professionals at all."

The literature distributed by CPCs often makes false and non-scientific claims about reproductive health, such as that condoms aren't effective means of birth control, abortion increases the risk of breast cancer, and abortion causes complications in future pregnancies.

Protesters, many of them college students, lined the street across from the CPC for three hours, holding signs that read, "FAKE CLINIC" and "Honk for Choice!"

Often targeting young women in vulnerable situations, the Greensboro CPC is located within two miles of four college campuses. Students from the University of North Carolina (UNC)-Greensboro, Salem College and UNC-Chapel Hill plan to keep demonstrating and exposing the CPC agenda.

Students also discussed a campaign to get the UNC-Greensboro and the county health clinics to stop referring patients to CPCs for pregnancy tests.