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The Daily Tar Heel

Don’t mix abortion issues with clarity, General Assembly

The N.C. General Assembly should pass public policies that protect the fundamental right of patients at pregnancy care centers — family planning organizations that provide alternatives to abortion.

These policies should mandate providing unbiased, factually accurate medical information in pregnancy-related decision-making.

On Monday, the Chapel Hill Town Council passed a resolution to rein in issues of malpractice and misinformation at pregnancy care centers.

NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina, an abortion rights activist group, presented the resolution to the Chapel Hill Town Council.

In the resolution, the Town Council promoted the following three items:

Firstly, patients have the right to medically and factually accurate information.

Secondly, misinformation and deception undermine this fundamental right.

And, lastly, the proposal called on the N.C. General Assembly to protect this right by pursuing public policies to ensure that the principles stated above are applied for pregnancy-related counseling.

On its own, the Town Council has no authority to do anything by itself. However, by passing this resolution, the Town Council is asking the N.C. General Assembly to take action.

The General Assembly should heed this call.

The Republican leadership in the legislature should realize that this is not a matter of anti-abortion or pro-abortion rights.

Passing this resolution in the General Assembly should, thus, not be influenced at all by opinions regarding abortion.

Rather, this is a matter of promoting clarity in medical counseling.

No one should be misled when seeking information about health care.

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