Reports reveal Crisis Pregnancy Centres are misleading women seeking impartial counselling.

Reports published this month say that false information about abortion is being given to women seeking  impartial pregnancy counselling at independent Crisis Pregnancy Centres (CPCs) in the UK.

CPCs are supposed to offer counselling on pregnancy choices, and sometimes free testing and other services.

Of the five main CPCs, four are either outwardly set up by religious groups or have religious roots.

And unlike the government-registered Pregnancy Advice Bureaux (PABx), CPCs are unregulated.

An undercover Daily Telegraph investigation filmed counsellors at two Crisis Pregnancy Centres falsely linking abortion with subsequent miscarriages, infertility or cancer and even telling women that they risked becoming child sex abusers after having an abortion.

Dr Kate Guthrie, a spokesperson for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), responding to the investigation footage, said that there no scientific evidence to suggest having an abortion puts women at higher risk of cancer or of abusing a child.

Dr Guthrie also pointed out that the risk of being left infertile after an abortion in Britain is “very, very low” and that counsellors talking about “sharp instruments” used during abortion were not up to date with modern techniques.

In addition to the Telegraph investigation, a report was published on 10 February by Brook, a national sexual health charity, highlighting that misinformation issued by CPCs is a national problem.

The report studied the websites and materials of CPCs throughout the country and found that 38 out of 135 CPCs gave some form of misinformation about the physical health outcomes of abortion, and 53 centres mentioned ‘post-abortion syndrome’, which is a mental health disorder unrecognised by medical authorities.

In addition, Brook sent ‘mystery shoppers’ to 33 CPCs, and found that the quality of counselling varied extensively between CPCs but that many provided misinformation.

Approximately a third of the CPCs visited linked abortion to infertility, despite there being no proven link between the two.

Some ‘mystery shoppers’ were falsely told there was an increased risk of breast cancer associated with abortion, some were given misleading information on mental health outcomes following an abortion and others were shown images of foetal development and offered ultrasounds in a bid to prevent them going ahead with an abortion.

The Brook report also revealed that a number of CPCs have established links with the NHS and that some even claim to receive referrals from local GPs and hospitals.

This is not the first time CPCs have been found falling short of national standards: another undercover reporter in 2011 also found evidence of inaccurate information being given to women seeking counselling on abortion.

Following the recent reports, MPs have pressed the Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt, to act to review abortion counselling and regulate CPCs.

Dr Sarah Wollaston, a former GP who is now the Conservative MP for Totnes and a member of the current government’s Health Select Committee, said: “There has to be transparency about who is funding these organisations and whether they are anti-abortion.”

“If a ‘clinic’ is giving medical advice it should come under the remit of the Care Quality Commission which should then have the powers to close it if it is giving out completely false information”.

And she added: “Now is the time for the Secretary of State to order a review of the whole abortion counselling process.”

The Secretary of State for Health has so far refused to comment.