Washington Attorney General Creates Form to Report Pro-Life Pregnancy Centers for ‘Deception’

The Washington Attorney General’s office recently created a “reproductive rights complaint form” on its state website that can be used to report pro-life activists and crisis pregnancy centers, Live Action News reported on Monday. 

The form enables anyone to file complaint claiming they were denied an abortion, “experienced harassment at a clinic or other reproductive health care facility,” or “experienced deception, harassment, or other misconduct at a crisis pregnancy center,” the website states.

Complaints may also be filed if some claims to have been denied insurance coverage for a “reproductive health issue,” if an insurer failed to maintain confidentiality, or if a pharmacy “refused to fill prescription for birth control, emergency contraception or abortion pills.” 

“We wanted to make sure people understood what their rights were,” said Kristin Beneski, Washington’s First Assistant Attorney General. “Certainly our office is working to understand situations in which people’s rights may be being violated, and if that’s ever the case our intent would be to take actions within our power to protect those rights.”

According to KXLY, the Washington Attorney General’s office could use the information from the forms to follow up on cases and “potentially [open] up an investigation.”

“The AG’s office says it’s in contact with state law enforcement if they find anything from their investigations,” according to the report.

Paul Dillon with Planned Parenthood in Spokane praised the forms and said Planned Parenthood plans on using the new system to report pro-life activists who gather outside of abortion clinics. 

“Protests have doubled, and so we’re seeing more protests. It does impact staff, it does impact patients,” Dillon said. “We’ve already had some noisy protests this morning with protesters yelling at staff and patients, and we had patients voice concern.”

Live Action News, a pro-life news website, noted that “while it appears that the complaint form may be used to target pro-life activity, the FBI has confirmed that 70 percent of abortion-related threats and violence — since the draft of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked in May — have been committed against pro-lifers, not abortion businesses.”

“Testifying before the Senate Homeland Security Committee in November, FBI Director Christopher Wray said, ‘Now, we have quite a number of investigations — as we speak — into attacks or threats against pregnancy resource centers, faith-based organizations, and other pro-life organizations. And you might be interested to know that since the Dobbs act decision, probably in the neighborhood of 70 percent of our abortion-related violence cases or threats cases are cases of violence or threats against […] pro-life organizations,”’ the report states.