A deceptive crisis pregnancy center?

AAA Women for Choice, a crisis pregnancy center in Manassas, Va., opened for business as usual this week, but because of a scathing Washington Post column last Thursday, it did so under greater scrutiny.

Post writer Petula Dvorak accused the organization of using deceptive practices, like a confusing name that includes the word “choice” to “lure” in pregnant women and shame them out of choosing abortion.

The crisis pregnancy center has operated in a small, red brick office park 40 miles southwest of Washington, D.C., for many years—directly next door to Amethyst Health Center, which performed abortions. Last fall, AAA Women for Choice bought the Amethyst office space but left intact Amethyst’s signage. Former Amethyst phone lines now ring at the AAA Women for Choice desk.

Staff at AAA Women for Choice declined to speak on the record to WORLD and said director Pat Lohman was unavailable for comment. Although the crisis pregnancy center has never been a member of the pregnancy care network Heartbeat International, I asked Heartbeat spokesman Jay Hobbs for his thoughts about the “deception” charge. He noted that in real estate transactions the seller (in this case the abortion center), not the buyer, has the responsibility to remove signage or take down Google local pages that still contain an old phone number.

Hobbs pointed out that pro-abortion forces often “assert that any effort to provide pro-life services within a certain distance from their facility violates some sort of eminent domain they supposedly enjoy. … Obviously, there’s no truth to that claim, and there’s no law or ethical expectation that ought to discourage a life-affirming center from locating next door to an abortion facility.” Still, he said, “switching the phones over immediately is the right thing to do in this situation, particularly if—as it seems to be the case—the phone number was sold with the building.”

The Post story also suggested AAA Women for Choice wasn’t required to protect patient confidentiality, citing a representative from NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia. But Hobbs said any incorporated not-for-profit organization like AAA Women for Choice has to abide by confidentiality rules.

While the crisis pregnancy center may not be breaking any laws to get women through the front door, it may not be treating women ethically or biblically once they’re inside. Dvorak described one of center director Lohman’s own stories about an 11-year-old who came with her parents for a pregnancy test. According to Dvorak, Lohman told her she didn’t have to report it—as a suspected case of statutory rape or child abuse—because staff at the center aren’t doctors.

“That’s not quite accurate,” Hobbs said, “if they are a pregnancy center. It makes you a mandatory reporter. … That would be an issue, if it were true.”