Sound the Alarm: Fake "Clinic" Cons 17-Year-Old Girl

[texastoast]

From an email I just received from Cecile Richards, the daughter of Texas' last good governor.

Take action:

http://www.ppaction.org/campaign/fake_clinics2_hp


The Story: An Indiana mother recently accompanied her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend to one of Indiana's Planned Parenthood clinics, but they unwittingly walked into a "crisis pregnancy center" run by an anti-abortion group — one that shared a parking lot with the real Planned Parenthood clinic, and was designed expressly to lure our patients and deceive them.

The group took down the girl's confidential personal information and told her to come back for her appointment, which they said would be in their "other office" (the real Planned Parenthood office nearby). When she arrived for her appointment, not only did the Planned Parenthood staff have no record of her, but the police were there — the "crisis pregnancy center" had called them, claiming that a minor was being forced to have an abortion against her will.

The "crisis pregnancy center" staff then proceeded to wage a campaign of intimidation and harassment over the following days, showing up at the girl's home and calling her father's workplace. Our clinic director reports that she was "scared to death to leave her house." They even went to her school and urged classmates to pressure her not to have an abortion.

This cruel and fraudulent behavior shows exactly what's behind the proliferation of these centers. That's why this new bill is so important: it would make it illegal for any entity to advertise abortion services if it does not provide such services.

Worse yet — the Bush administration has used $60 million in taxpayer dollars to fund these propaganda machines. This has got to stop!

Help bring attention to this outrageous practice. Please contact your representative today!

[LeftyMom]

1. You need to sign out of the PP site and fix your link right away

It shows your first and last name. :scared:

[Coexist]

3. Ioweyouabeer!

:toast:

[texastoast]

31. No, I owe you one

I posted another link copied from one of the threads below.

[texastoast]

13. Now you know

I'm trying to get another link. I don't get why it didn't display like that for me. Yikes.

[Coexist]

2. PLEASE REMOVE YOUR LINK -

It defaults to your personal account there with your name.

[texastoast]

10. Whoa!

Thanks. It didn't display for me that way when I posted it. I will try to get a better link.

[Justitia]

4. Those motherfuckers. I would sue them on every ground possible.

Posing as phony medical provider, harassment, stalking, trespassing, intentional infliction of emotional distress, etc., etc.

[MountainLaurel]

5. Funny you should bring this up

I'm involved in a flame war on another board with woman saying that these centers don't do anything but provide poor pregnant women with diapers, clothes, formula (?), and information about social services.

:mad:

[ThomCat]

8. Yeah, and the sky is pink with green polka dots.

:grr:

I hope your flames are hotter than hers.

[MountainLaurel]

42. The entire thread got removed

That board tends to be less focused on free speech, and abortion is one of those things that sets people off.

[LeftyMom]

11. They provide very little

I read a news article about a place in NYC that required a woman to attend and get signatures verifying that she was at worship services at approved churches in order to get carseats and other basics. A young woman went to them for help, but asked if the church attendace requirement could be waived as she's jewish. You know where they told her to go for help? Planned Parenthood.

Those CPCs work closely with adoption facilities, and they work to make sure there's a supply of healthy white babies for fundie families to buy. They generally won't do shit to help a girl if she's a minority or won't be putting her baby up for adoption.

[dogday]

6. Read where they are getting

federal funds to the tune of 60 million dollars while they cut funding to kids health and kid's food programs.... Doesn't seem right, does it???

[Horse with no Name]

7. Outrageous

But it doesn't shock me.:(
This has to be stopped.

[tigereye]

9. those folks are awful

I don't mind so much when they actually help young women who want to have a baby and need help, but to actively con people and then harrass them... Well, come to think of it, that's what they usually do. :eyes:

[LiberalPartisan]

12. Utterly repugnant...and so par for the course

Remember - it's not about concern for the mother or preventing abortions - it is soely about compelling pregnant women to give birth - nay forcing them to give birth. May the Lord smite them for taking His name in vain by their very soulless existence.

[Heddi]

14. I do not understand how their actions aren't a violation of HIPAA

For this clinic to call her father's business (illegal), to go to her home (illegal), to go to her school (illegal) SPECIFICALLY telling people about the surgical/medical procedure she was seeking is, in a single word, illegal.

It is a direct violation of federal HIPAA laws. They cannot tell anyone ANYTHING about her: *IF* she visited their offices, *WHY* they visited their offices, what *INFORMATION* she sought at the office.

This young lady and her family need to get a laywer that specificially handles medical issues pertaining to HIPAA violations. They also need to call their state board of health and report this office for violating her rights as outlined under HIPAA.

This is a link to a website which offers HIPAA complaint forms. She needs to be filling these out ASAP

http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/6760.html

http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs8a-hipaa.htm

[Horse with no Name]

24. They aren't bound by HIPAA laws

Because they aren't a healthcare provider. My guess is that they proclaim themselves (on paper) to be a church ministry which would preclude them from any privacy laws.

[ceile]

27. But the young woman was under the impression that they were.

She gave them her personal info on the good faith basis that they were what they represented themselves to be-a medical clinic. That sounds to me like a good case for fraud. I hope her and her parents go after them.

[Horse with no Name]

32. My guess is that the fine print held all of the answers

and my guess is that they didn't read them.
You can't argue in a court of law that someone "assumed" what you didn't outright tell them.
My guess is that their bases are very well covered legally. Places and organizations that pull this shit are very well compensated legally and financially.
Their intent WAS to mislead--there isn't any doubt in my mind because they created a storefront in the same center as PP, deliberately pulling in desperate young women.
However, unless they had Planned Parenthood plastered on their door or their propaganda, I doubt that they can be touched legally.
(Places like this have operated for years--however, the sickening part is now they are funded by our government.:mad:)

[dogday]

37. Funded by us taxpayers to the tune of 60 million dollars

that just isn't right...

[Horse with no Name]

38. It is about as wrong

as wrong gets.:(

[gatorboy]

15. This is similar to a recent Law & Order storyline.

It involved a doctor who others assumed performed abortions but in reality was anti-abortion.
Did anyone see this? During a check up he would lie about how far the pregnancy was so when they came in for the actual abortion, she would be too far long to have it. I'd also like to say that he administered drugs to speed up the process but I can't be sure.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

19. I saw it. He didn't lie about how far the pregnancy was but he told her

she had a fever and kept stalling her until it was too late. She called every single day to the point that one of his employees quit. The doctor also falsified her temperature on the chart. The girl was perfectly fine. There were no drugs involved.

[gatorboy]

35. D'oh. Shows how much I was paying attention.

My wife was watching this and I came in near the tail-end.

I do remember what the big boss said though:

"I may be Pro-Life but I'm also Pro-Law, arrest the doctor..."

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

41. That was a great line. The best that ever came out of Fred Thompson's

mouth..and that was as a fictional character. I despise the character he plays as well as I despise him as a human being.

[AllegroRondo]

21. That one is based on a true story

from last year's news. The Doc would keep stringing them along, postponing and cancelling appointments, until it was too late.

[proud2BlibKansan]

23. Yes I saw that episode

It gave me the creeps.

[AtomicKitten]

16. These "crisis centers" have been around for years.

However, their repugnant jihad against pregnant moms seeking abortion has escalated.

This is something that should be turned over to the city's District Attorney.

[warrens]

17. Liars for Jesus

Just a few more of a very large force that makes up about 22 percent of those nuts that still approve of our fascist unelected punk.

[lpbk2713]

18. I admire Ann Richards. She counterbalances Texas' reputation.

For what Shit-for-Brains and a few others have done to its otherwise good name.


Ann is one of my heroes.


"Poor George. He can't help it ...... " I love it. One of the greatest lines ever.


I hope Ann is doing well. I heard she had some health problems.

[Horse with no Name]

25. This is Ann's daughter Cecile.

She, like her mother, has an impressive resume.
Ann has thyroid cancer.
I wish her well too. She is one helluva lady.

[texastoast]

29. I think it is esophageal cancer

And I am hoping for the best for her too.

[Horse with no Name]

33. Oops you are right

I stand corrected. Thanks!

[texastoast]

26. Expecting a full recovery

'If I can beat Clayton Williams, I can beat this'

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/chronicle/3787124.html

I love her and will always. She's a true Texan. Remember, we were long Democratic before the neocons got started. We will rise again.

[ContraBass Black]

20. Any news reports on this?

What about details of that federal funding?

[texastoast]

22. I googled it

but haven't come up with anything yet.

[Breeze54]

28. The Crisis Centers are a joke!! Please sign the letter to congress HERE!!

http://www.plannedparenthood.org/pp2/portal/files/portal/webzine/newspoliticsactivism/fean-060420-crisis-pregnancy.xml

Stopping Crisis Pregnancy Centers
by Amy Bryant 04.20.06

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) recently introduced the
Stop Deceptive Advertising for Women's Services (SDAWS) Act,
which would require the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce truth-in-advertising
standards for fake "clinics" known as anti-choice crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs).

CPCs pose as objective health facilities using neutral-sounding names and deceptive
advertising practices that lead women facing unintended pregnancies to believe that
they will be offered unbiased counseling and a full range of reproductive health services.

Unsuspecting women are lured into CPCs with the offer of free pregnancy testing or HIV tests.

"Deception and lies don't help women make informed choices."

"When women are making a health decision,
they should never be subject to deceit and trickery," said Maloney,
at a press conference on March 30 to announce the bill.
"Some of these crisis pregnancy centers should be called
'counterfeit pregnancy centers.'
They have the right to exist, but they shouldn't have the right
to deceive in order to advance their particular beliefs."

Inside CPCs

Once inside, the clinic staff — usually volunteers with no professional training —
try to dissuade women from choosing abortion by subjecting them to inaccurate,
anti-choice propaganda and intimidation...

More at link

:spank:
TAKE ACTION!!!
The message below will be sent on your behalf
Click the Link to Sign!!

Dear < Decision Maker >,

I am writing as your constituent to urge you to support H.R. 5052,
the Stop Deceptive Advertising for Women's Services Act,
sponsored by Rep. Carolyn Maloney.

(Edit Letter Below)
http://www.ppaction.org/campaign/fake_clinics2_hp

[DaveJ]

30. Making false accusations to police is a crime isn't it?

There already are laws against what they did.

[KyndCulture]

34. Pure EVIL!

that's just a sick story!

[knitter4democracy]

36. I knew of a student whose mother forced her to get an abortion.

It does happen. She told her English teacher (she taught across the hall from me and told me about it, as I was mentoring her that year, to ask if she had to report it), and she was just devastated. It's a long story, but there was definitely abuse going on, and the school had to report it.

That said, for them to assume that it was happening to that girl without confirming it and then to get to the school and other students is disgusting. How dare they?! Those people are just sick and twisted--they have hurt her more by doing this than any abortion would ever have.

[w8liftinglady]

39. Criminal Minds,or Law and Order had a show about this

fundie dad ..so girl self-aborted-they found the fetus.traced back to fake abortion clinic...sick bastards.

[KingFlorez]

40. Good Grief

WHEN WILL THE FUNDIES LEARN TO MIND THEIR OWN BUSINESS! It's getting out of hand. They are insane calling the police like that.