Driving around the Denver metropolitan area, you’ve probably seen billboards that read “Pregnant? Scared? Call this number and get help.” What you may not know is what Colorado women get when they make that call. It is the exact opposite of help. The people behind those billboards operate so-called “Crisis Pregnancy Centers,” which are set up not to provide healthcare but to reverse abortion rights.

Yet the operators of these fraudulent centers have testified before the Colorado General Assembly as “experts” on and advocates for women’s health. Coloradans and their political representatives should know that the operators of CPCs are anything but experts on health, which is far from their primary concern. Despite posing as comprehensive healthcare clinics, CPCs are a network of mostly unlicensed, unregulated anti-choice organizations. Also referred to as Pregnancy Resource Centers, CPCs are organized by the religious extremists behind the anti-choice movement, and aim to discourage women from choosing abortion.

Hoping to exploit the anxieties of women seeking assistance, CPCs use a variety of tactics to lure women inside. To bolster their ploy, the facilities resemble medical clinics and frequently offer professional care or counseling, free pregnancy testing and sonograms. They often list themselves under “abortion” in online directories and search results and use misleading names meant to deceive women into believing that they are accredited healthcare providers. Yet the vast majority of these clinics do not employ medical doctors or even registered nurses. Nor do they provide medical treatments, healthcare screenings or test for STIs.

Once lured inside, women are treated to a carefully crafted program of manipulation designed to dissuade them from choosing birth control, abortion and, if they are unmarried, sex. Women lured into CPCs are given false information about contraception, told that the birth control pill causes breast cancer, that condoms don’t protect against STIs and that IUDs can kill. Other lies they are told include that the “morning after” pill causes cancer and is the same as a medication abortion. As any medical doctor will tell you, emergency contraception and RU 486 are two entirely different drugs. Emergency contraception prevents pregnancy — and, if you take it while pregnant, you remain pregnant. RU 486 terminates an existing pregnancy. By providing vulnerable women with incomplete or blatantly false information, CPCs may even endanger their health.

Additionally, CPCs tell women that abortions are emotionally scarring and lead to psychological problems, which is false. According to Time Magazine, a three-year study of 670 women found that “Ninety-five percent of women who have had abortions do not regret the decision to terminate their pregnancies.” The authors of the study concluded that the “overwhelming majority” of the women participating in the study felt that abortion had been the right decision “both in the short-term and over three years.”

Furthermore, CPC staffers utilize bullying and manipulative tactics to coerce women, misleading them about their legal rights and their health care options. According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, when Dania Flores went undercover to investigate CPCs in California, “she was never told that California’s Medi-Cal program covered the cost of reproductive services, including abortion.” Nor that time was of the essence. Instead, she says, she was misled and shamed by anti-abortion activists masquerading as concerned healthcare providers.” Again, as reported in the LA Times story, “In Mountain View, (Dania) agreed to a free vaginal ultrasound after a regular ultrasound did not detect a fetus — because, of course, there wasn’t one. After inserting the wand, the sonogram technician mistook Flores’ IUD for a fetus, and informed her it did not have a heartbeat.”

Again, representatives from CPCs frequently testify before the Colorado General Assembly on anti-choice bills as “experts on women’s health.” And this is not their only deception. Some of these anti-choice zealots actually own and operate CPCs — a blatant, if undisclosed, conflict of interest.

Women seeking professional healthcare advice do not deserve to be deceived by unprofessional ideologues impersonating medical experts, particularly when it comes to deeply personal reproductive health decisions. It is inappropriate for elected politicians, sworn to uphold our laws, to condone entities that misinform their constituents about their legal rights and their healthcare options. What’s more, elected representatives have a responsibility to seek the facts about CPCs in order to make informed policy decisions within our State Assembly.

Wherever one stands on the question of choice, the state funding of CPCs is indefensible. No legislator should sanction groups that seek to mislead their constituents about their legal rights. To do so would misappropriate public money and represent an inexcusable disservice to the people of Colorado.