Abortion – You are an American woman, you want to have an abortion and you go to a “pregnancy crisis center”… But once there, they try to dissuade you. This is unfortunately normal, because the assumed goal of these pseudo medical centers is to convince women wishing to have an abortion to give it up.
At a time when Roe v. Wade has just been revoked, the Crisis Pregnancy Center map site, which does prevention against establishments of this type, identified exactly 2,548 in 2022. Their research is based on examining the online directories of five national organizations that support CPCs (short for Crisis Pregnancy Center). The purpose of this census? Warn and guide women who want to have an abortion.
By comparison, only 1,547 clinics actually performed abortions in 2017, according to a study by the Guttmacher Institute, an NGO that aims to improve sexual and reproductive health and rights. The Time even estimates that the false centers are now three times more numerous than the real ones in a survey of the data collected by the CPCs.
Texas, a “pro-life” state, holds the sad record for the number of fake clinics: 198. In California, historically open to abortion, there are 148.
In the United States, all of this is legal. These centers are NGOs funded by Catholic organizations and the government. The problem is that it is difficult to differentiate them from real clinics. The media relay little information on this subject and many women fall into the trap. This can have devastating consequences.
Pledges of donations and free exams
Their strategy for attracting “customers” is simple. CPCs offer free services, such as an appointment or pregnancy tests, which are usually very expensive given the low social security coverage in the United States. Their target? Women in very precarious situations. They also offer baby clothes and diapers.
What’s more, they are often placed strategically, next to family planning, and the staff dons white coats. Jennifer, a 38-year-old American who escaped these clinics, confided in France 24“They dress like doctors, but they’re not. (…) They are just people with strong religious beliefs.”
It is once inside that the women discover the real intentions of the CPCs. “The goal is to get you through their door, by any means possible, and then do everything to dissuade you from having an abortion,” adds Jennifer. The things promised on storefronts are mostly lies. According to a study by Katrina Kimport, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, who interviewed 21 former patients about the practices of these centers, baby supplies and other free gifts and services are often exchanged for participation in workshops propagating a religious and anti-abortion message.
The ideological trap is closed by all possible means. always according to France 24, fake doctors do not hesitate to distort science, claiming, for example, that abortion increases infertility. They lie, too, claiming that the pregnancy is more advanced than it really is. Last string to their bow: they play on the sensitive chord by listening to the baby’s heartbeat.
It is no coincidence that on its official website, Heartbeat International, the anti-abortion association which claims to be behind 1,800 of the 2,500 “fake centers”, claims that it works “to make abortion undesirable today and unthinkable for future generations.”
20% of CPCs receive public money
According to Heartbeat International, CPCs as they exist today developed in the 1960s, when the United States was liberalizing its abortion laws. They then increased in number, after 1973, when the Supreme Court established the right of Americans to abortion in the famous decision Roe v. Wade. Two main religious organizations finance these centers: Heartbeat international, therefore, and Care net.
But the CPCs also receive taxpayers’ money. In the late 1990s, the Conservatives provided them with public funds to launch sexual risk prevention programs and alternatives to abortion. Nearly 20% of CPCs now receive them, says The Time. The American newspaper also cites a report made in 2021 by the research firm Equity forward: twelve states pay up to $ 8 million each year to these fake clinics. Texas – again – provides up to 50 million dollars a year. A state where there is one real clinic for every ten CPCs.
The Time also raised another issue: the data collected by these centers — and specifically by the anti-abortion groups that run them — could be used for other purposes. Especially since most CPCs are not licensed medical clinics, so they are not required to follow federal health data privacy laws.
The information retrieved concerns sexual and reproductive history, test results, ultrasound photos or information shared during consultations. These databases could be used as evidence in initiating and pursuing legal actions – for example against a woman who wished to have an abortion in a state prohibiting it.
Women try to denounce these centers on the networks
It is difficult to say whether CPCs also exist in Europe. The extent of the phenomenon is inestimable given the scant information circulating on this subject. In Ireland, a country traditionally opposed to abortion, legal since 2018, the Gianna Care centers congratulate themselves on the site of Life institute, an organization which works to build a culture of life in Ireland, for having dissuaded in space a month thirteen women to abort, when nine others are still undecided. But they do write on their site: “we strive to break down the barriers she (a woman) faces to allow her to continue with her pregnancy.”
Some women, mostly survivors of these fake clinics, have joined forces to fight against CPCs, especially via social networks. Jennifer, for example, denounced a center in Buffalo, New York, in front of which she demonstrated three times in May – while relaying it on the web – and revealed to France 24 having dissuaded people who wanted to go there for an abortion.
To be wrong is easy. In the 13 states set to quickly ban abortion, nearly 40% of searches on Google Maps for “abortion clinic near me” and “abortion pill” led to CPCs, according to the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a disinformation research organization.
Abortion rights advocates try to let women know the pitfalls to avoid: No, there’s no free ultrasound. No, these people are not doctors. No, you will not be able to have an abortion in these clinics. Another warning sign according to Jennifer: “Phrases like ‘Why you should choose our establishment’ and not ‘Family planning’. A real clinic would make sure to give you all the options.”
On June 23, elected Democrats joined the activists: they tabled a text in the House of Representatives to combat false information related to abortion.
To see the map created by the Crisis pregnancy center map site, click here.
See also on The HuffPost: The United States (a little more) divided after the revocation of the right to abortion
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