This legal approach is much-needed to break open the hidden world of crisis pregnancy centers, which manipulate girls and women with far-right Christian dogma and deceptive anti-abortion literature.  With broader public understanding of the streams of money poured on them, and the streams of misunderstanding that they pour on unsuspecting women, support for crisis pregnancy centers would soon run dry.  Yet, because they sound "nice," or maybe even harmless, few legal organizations have been willing to get involved in uncovering their activities or the way that government money is used in such religious missions.

According to CREW, the organization had requested the relevant documents on August 4 of this year, but to this point HHS has refused to comply with the request.


The genesis of the controversy is a July report prepared for Rep. Henry Waxman by the House of Representatives' Committee on Government Reform. In the report, titled "False and Misleading Health Information Provided by Federally Funded Pregnancy Resource Centers," the researchers found that "the centers provided false and misleading information about a link between abortion and breast cancer..., the effect of abortion on future fertility..., and the mental health effects of abortion." The CREW suit is seeking access to all documents related to these pregnancy resource centers, their communications with the White House or any other governmental body, their connections to the faith-based initiative program, and the subject of federal funding.