Author: Jenifer McKenna

Jenifer McKenna is senior advisor at Reproductive Health and Freedom Watch, co-founder of California Women's Law Center and co-author of the 2021 report "Designed to Deceive: A Study of the Crisis Pregnancy Center Industry in Nine States." She can be reached at jenifermckenna@mjmconsulting.org.

The Anti-Abortion Movement Is Pumping Resources into Promoting Fake Clinics—And Google Is Helping

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Abortion opponents are now targeting states where abortion remains legal, such as Massachusetts, by pumping resources into a spider web of anti-abortion “crisis pregnancy centers” (CPCs) that work to entrap people searching for reproductive healthcare. And Google made $10.2 million over the last two years running deceptive advertisements for these fake clinics.

“Google … is more than willing to allow advertisers to lie, deceive, limit users’ rights to good information and to healthcare, as long as they get paid in the process.”

Grassroots Progress to Hold Anti-Abortion Crisis Pregnancy Centers Accountable

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The crisis pregnancy center industry targets women—especially low-income women, young women, and women of color—using deceptive ads to pose as medical clinics and obscure their anti-abortion mission.

Grassroots reproductive health advocates are taking action to counter CPCs’ disinformation and abuse by advocating for state and local laws to prohibit deceptive advertising, protect health data privacy, advance public education about CPCs, and create avenues for consumer complaints about their deceitful and dangerous practices.

Anti-Abortion ‘Crisis Pregnancy Centers’ Face New Accountability Post-Roe

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Post-Roe, the anti-abortion movement is funneling more resources to crisis pregnancy centers that use these tactics in order to block access to abortion healthcare, both in states with bans and in states that protect reproductive rights.

Over 2,500 crisis pregnancy centers across the U.S. provide virtually no medical services, spreading fabricated claims about the dangers of abortion. Public officials are taking actions to hold CPCs accountable for their deceptive practices.