Washingtonpost.com: (Petula Dvorak)
It’s a tactic she has embraced for nearly three decades to disrupt one of Northern Virginia’s few abortion clinics. Lohman operates her Manassas crisis pregnancy center right next door.
Same brick building, same sign, same generic office decor. The abortion clinic, Amethyst Health Center for Women, was on the right. The pregnancy center, AAA Women for Choice, is on the left.
Confused women seeking abortions would wind up in Lohman’s place, where she threw all she had at them — pamphlets, pleas, prayers, promises of help, used baby gear, bloody imagery, God — to change their minds.
“Deceptive? People say we’re deceptive? Okay,” Lohman told me. “But what the other guys are doing? That’s deceptive, too. Those girls have no idea what abortion really is. When I hear ‘pro-choice,’ that is a deception. And this country has forgotten about God.”
Here’s the part that’s really astonishing. Several months ago, the abortion provider retired and the Amethyst Health Center closed. That’s when Lohman, 69, and her supporters swooped in, orchestrating their grandest deception yet.
Nothing indicates that the abortion clinic is closed except a locked door. The clinic’s Google ads still pop up, and the phone number still works. When women dial the closed abortion clinic, the call is forwarded straight to the pregnancy center. Everything remains in place to lure women to the clinic and hope they try the door, figure they made a mistake, then go right next door to the carefully named AAA Women for Choice.
Pat Lohman and her friends have been following cars and lying to people for 25 years. She has tricked patients, lied, deceived, and violated confidentiality.
City residents need to realize what is going on within their boundaries. There is nothing medical about AAA Women for Choice. They collect private information and think nothing of calling the “patient” at home, singing hymns to them, “outing” them or other breeches of confidentiality.
While some residents got out pitchforks and torches over a provocative underwear shop, this deception went on right under their noses, probably with their approval. Now that patients actually think they are going for a legal medical procedure, they are being met by charlatans. How about state laws or city ordinances? Do they allow businesses to misrepresent themselves as medical facilities? Do they allow these businesses to take confidential information regarding individuals?
Something is just seriously effed up if this kind of business is allowed to operate in the City of Manassas. It is simply wrong–ethically, morally and legally.
Where is the protection for the women of Virginia?
More Reading:
How abortion opponents secretly bought a Va. abortion clinic to deceive women
by: Petula Dvorak
What I Learned Undercover at a Crisis Pregnancy Center
by: Caitin Bancroft (Huffington Post)
Does it work?
I think one of the individuals needs to go after them for HIPAA violations. They are collecting protected information under the pretense of being a medical facility.
I think so too. I think Lohman said that because they aren’t a medical facility, they get by with it. Talk about a Catch-22 of epic proportion.
Hopefully, more and more people will become aware of this deception. I hope Herring goes after them also.
The Washington Post article is not doing them any favors.
I have also been told that the local Knights of Columbus financially supports AAA Women for Choice. Perhaps someone can confirm or deny this “factoid.”
Regardless of how one feels about abortion, the ethics violation is simply astounding.
If I were younger, I would stand out on the sidewalk with a sign, just to protect women from them. Imagine, having an unwanted pregnancy and then having to deal with these A-holes.
Bunch of liars
Nod. Then you also have to wonder if anyone has died because they didn’t get real medical attention.