Crisis Pregnancy Centers and Fake Clinics

Crisis pregnancy centers (also called CPCs or “fake clinics”) are clinics or mobile vans that look like real health centers, but they’re run by antiabortion activists with a harmful agenda: to scare, shame or pressure people out of getting an abortion, and to tell lies about abortion, birth control and sexual health. Since the fall of Roe, CPCs and fake clinics have posed a prolific danger, with many states increasing their public funding for these centers.

Despite Republican Bans and Clinic Violence, Independent Abortion Providers Fight to Keep Their Doors Open

In the fight for abortion rights, independent clinics are the unsung heroes.

Even before the end of Roe v. Wade in 2022, independent clinics provided the majority of abortion care in the United States, more than hospitals, private physicians and even Planned Parenthood. Since the Dobbs decision, despite the closing of dozens of indie clinics in states where total abortion bans went into effect, they’ve still provided about 58 percent of abortions in the country, according to data from Abortion Care Network (ACN)’s latest report, released on Tuesday.

Trump and His New Republican Congress Will Make *All* U.S. Taxpayers Fund Unregulated Crisis Pregnancy Clinics

While serial attacks on abortion rights seize the headlines, the anti-choice movement has quietly built an on-the-ground network of unregulated pregnancy clinics—also known as crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) and antiabortion centers (AACs)—that is eroding access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare and electioneering against abortion rights, mostly under the radar and increasingly on the public dime.

‘Abortion Librarians’: The Online Abortion Resources Squad’s Vital Work on Reddit

If someone needs an abortion and is unsure how to get one, they’ll probably do what seems obvious to many of us: Use Google or another search engine and type “abortion options near me.” It’s likely they’ll find a mishmash of antiabortion crisis pregnancy centers, clinics that aren’t actually near them, and irrelevant information. 

That’s where the Online Abortion Resources Squad (OARS) comes in. We run the r/abortion subreddit on the social media platform Reddit. No matter who you are, where you live, or what you need regarding your abortion, you can write a post on the r/abortion subreddit any day at any time, and you’ll receive a quick, thorough, accurate and compassionate personal response.

Ahead of Election, Right-Wing Extremist Leonard Leo Seeks to Further Eliminate U.S. Abortion Access

The fights over upcoming ballot initiatives provide insight into just how many levers of power are at the disposal of antiabortion powerbroker Leonard Leo—the man who engineered the right-wing takeover of the U.S. Supreme Court that in turn reversed Roe—and his network. 

National antiabortion groups with ties to Leo, like Students for Life of America and Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, have set up PACs in multiple states where abortion is on the ballot. These groups are also canvassing, phone banking, running ads and helping sow distrust in the ballot signature collection process in certain states.

Documentary ‘Preconceived’ Exposes Horrors of Crisis Pregnancy Center Industry: ‘I Came to You for Help. Why Did You Lie?’

Since the fall of Roe, anti-choice politicians have rushed to champion “crisis pregnancy centers” (CPCs) as a legitimate alternative to qualified reproductive healthcare. As they funnel millions of taxpayer dollars into these unregulated clinics, abortion ban states suffer high rates of maternal and infant mortality and widespread maternal care deserts.

A new documentary, Preconceived (now available to stream), shines a clear light on this evasive industry, deftly navigating a complex landscape of deception, privacy, finances and faith.

I Refused to Let Texas’ Abortion Ban Decide My Life. Other Women Aren’t So Lucky.

The following is Madysyn Anderson’s personal story, as told to Courier Dallas:

“SB 8 became Texas law on Sept. 1, and I found out about my pregnancy just a couple of weeks later. I didn’t want an unwanted pregnancy to prevent me from completing the biggest achievement in my life thus far. I decided that I wanted to share my experience with abortion and be an educational resource.

“Unless our country gets a reality check about who we elect to office and we educate ourselves on their positions, we women have no hope of deciding whether we want to start a family or not—or if we want to carry a rapist’s child. We stand no chance unless we fight for what we believe in.”

Colorado One of Eight States Voting to Expand Abortion Access in November: ‘We’re Going to Be a Model for the Rest of the Country’

Come November, Colorado voters will have the opportunity to prove their support for abortion rights in the Centennial State. In May, Coloradans for Reproductive Freedom gathered more than the 125,000 valid petition signatures needed to place Initiative 89 on the 2024 general election ballot. 

The measure reads as follows:

“The right to abortion is hereby recognized. Government shall not deny, impede, or discriminate against the exercise of that right, including prohibiting health insurance coverage for abortion.”

Unregulated Pregnancy Clinics Collect Health Information From Pregnant People—With No Privacy Protection

This summer, the antiabortion movement is mounting an offensive against bipartisan bills to establish federal data privacy protections for Americans and long-overdue online protections for children.

While many unregulated pregnancy clinics, or crisis pregnancy centers, claim HIPAA compliance, they operate under no legal requirement to protect client confidentiality. Thus, they are free to share sensitive information they are collecting from pregnant people as they wish.

“No one should have to worry about their personal health information falling into the hands of anyone who might seek to use that information against them.”

Texas Sends Millions to Crisis Pregnancy Centers. It’s Meant to Help Needy Families, But No One Knows if It Works.

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Two years after Roe v. Wade was overturned, Texas leads the nation in funding for crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs). The system is meant to help growing families, but it’s riddled with waste and lacks oversight, a ProPublica and CBS News investigation found.

What’s worse: Lawmakers around the country are considering programs modeled on Texas’ CPC system, called Alternatives to Abortion.

‘Life and Death Decisions in Post-Roe America’: The Ms. Q&A with Shefali Luthra

Roe v. Wade was overturned on June 24, 2022. But according to Shefali Luthra, author of Undue Burden: Life and Death Decisions in Post-Roe America, “it had been on the verge of collapse for decades.” After all, most Medicaid recipients had lost insurance coverage for the procedure in 1977 and a plethora of restrictions—from parental consent and notification requirements for minors, to mandated counseling sessions to dissuade people from ending their pregnancies—had long kept procedural abortion out of reach for large segments of the population.

Undue Burden digs into this lack of preparedness by introducing diverse people who have been directly impacted by the decision—people who have had to travel hundreds of miles to have an abortion, people whose highly-anticipated pregnancies became untenable, a trans man who became pregnant shortly after beginning his transition, and a young couple who lacked the emotional and financial resources to welcome a second child, among them. Their stories are juxtaposed with those of overwrought clinicians as well as staff at abortion funds. The result is a poignant and dramatic look at the stakes of losing Roe and a compassionate assessment of the human toll wrought by Dobbs.