Reproductive health advocates see a ‘major problem’ with anti-abortion centers post-Roe

According to Equity Forward, anti-abortion centers in more than a dozen states, including Pennsylvania, have been allocated more than $89 million in public funds

BY: CASSIE MILLER
DECEMBER 7, 2022

Reproductive health advocates are again sounding the alarm on so-called crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs), also referred to as anti-abortion centers, that provide non-medical prenatal services, and abortion alternatives to pregnant people.

Ashley Underwood, director of Equity Forward, a reproductive rights watchdog organization, said the clinics are a “major problem” across the country in the post-Roe era.

Continued: https://www.penncapital-star.com/health-care/reproductive-health-advocates-see-a-major-problem-with-anti-abortion-centers-post-roe/

07.12.2022

Commentary

Featured

Ashley Underwood

crisis pregnancy centers

Under attack, global sexual health ‘can’t rely on US’

by SciDev.Net
July 25, 2022

Religious campaigns and political interference could threaten hard-won reproductive health rights in the global South in the wake of the US Supreme Court decision on abortion, health advocates fear.

Cross-border solidarity and coordination will be needed to face down the growing global threat to reproductive rights, health and policy experts have told SciDev.Net.

Continued: https://yubanet.com/world/under-attack-global-sexual-health-cant-rely-on-us/

Under attack, global sexual health ‘can’t rely on US’

July 20, 2022
By: Fiona Broom

Religious campaigns and political interference could threaten hard-won reproductive health rights in the global South in the wake of the US Supreme Court decision on abortion, health advocates fear.

Cross-border solidarity and coordination will be needed to face down the growing global threat to reproductive rights, health and policy experts have told SciDev.Net.

Continued: https://www.scidev.net/global/features/under-attack-global-sexual-health-cant-rely-on-us/

USA – Six ‘Sinister’ Tactics Anti-Abortion Centers Use To Coerce Pregnant People Away From Abortion Care

4/27/2022
by CARRIE N. BAKER, Ms. Magazine

While newspaper and Twitter headlines focus on draconian new abortion restrictions passing in state after state, the anti-abortion movement is diligently working behind the scenes to expand and strengthen its nationwide network of fake abortion clinics designed to deceive and coerce pregnant people away from abortion care. A new report by the research and accountability organization Equity Forward identifies and examines the primary methods anti-abortion centers (AACs) are using to expand their influence in the United States.

“The anti-abortion center network has developed, deployed and replicated an aggressive scheme of sinister tactics targeting people looking for abortion care and instead drive them to their centers,” said Equity Forward director Molly Bangs.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2022/04/27/fake-abortion-clinics-anti-abortion-crisis-pregnancy-centers-pregnant-abortion-care/

USA – Anti-abortion movement’s big plan: Supercharged “crisis pregnancy centers” and data harvesting

Anti-choice activists roll out bold new strategy to register and track abortion-seekers. Why do they want to know?

By KATHRYN JOYCE
PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 12, 2022

Oklahoma state Sen. George Burns, a Republican, introduced a new bill this month that would require anyone seeking an abortion in the state to call a designated hotline to receive counseling from "care agents" about abortion alternatives, and also to be screened for the possibility that they are victims of abuse, human trafficking or abortion coercion. The bill, SB 1167 or the "Every Mother Matters Act" (EMMA), is couched as an offer of resources, from housing to employment assistance, to provide "compassionate options for those faced with unexpected pregnancies," as Burns said in a press release. He acknowledges, however, that his "ultimate goal is ending abortion altogether."

So far, generally so familiar. But there's an important new twist here that looks to be the tip of a national iceberg: The Oklahoma bill also provides for the state Department of Health to assign each abortion-seeker who calls the hotline a "unique identifying number." Abortion providers would be required to obtain and record that number, which would also be registered in a DHS database.

Continued: https://www.salon.com/2022/02/12/anti-abortion-movements-big-plan-supercharged-crisis-pregnancy-centers-and-data-harvesting/

12.02.2022

Commentary

Featured

American Center for Law and Justice

Angela Paxton

anti-choice deception

anti-choice invasion of privacy

anti-choice lies

anti-choice misinformation

anti-choice misogyny

Chelsey Youman

crisis pregnancy centers

Cynthia Conti-Cook

digital technology and abortion

Heartbeat International

HIPAA restrictions

Human Coalition

Human Coalition Action

National Advocates for Pregnant Women

National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers

pregnancy care centers

Privacy International

Feminists Fight Fake Abortion Clinics: “No One Should Be Lied To”

Organizations like SPARK, ReproAction and Abortion Access Front are exposing the deceptive tactics of fake abortion clinics and organizing to stop them from harming women.

8/8/2021
Ms. Magazine
by CARRIE N. BAKER and JULIET SCHULMAN-HALL

“My high school was down the street from a crisis pregnancy center. My house that I grew up in was next door to a crisis center. I drove by it every day and saw ‘pregnancy resource center.’ I just assumed that it was a medical provider. I wasn’t the only person fooled,” says Agbo Ikor, Director of Programs at SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW in Atlanta, Georgia.

“My best friend when she was pregnant, she was taken to a crisis pregnancy center. And while she was there, they shamed her. They made her feel like if she had an abortion she was just this terrible person. It was very traumatizing for her,” says Ikor. “It is infuriating. It’s just really, really hard to think about.”

https://msmagazine.com/2021/08/08/feminists-fight-fake-abortion-clinics-no-one-should-be-lied-to/

08.08.2021

Abortion Access Front

abortion pill reversal

Agbo Ikor

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

Anna Bean

anti-choice deception

anti-choice misinformation

anti-choice misogyny

anti-choice sex education in public schools

Birthright International

Care Network

crisis pregnancy center

Dr. Andrea Swartzendruber

Equity Forward

fake clinics

Fake Clinics Suck

Heartbeat International

Human Coalition

Lizz Winstead

NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut Foundation

National Institute of Family and Life Advocates

Obria Medical Clinics

ReproAction

Shireen Shakouri

SPARK: Reproductive Justice Now

USA – At least 10 states divert federal welfare funding to anti-abortion clinics

Millions in aid intended to go to the neediest families is being used to finance clinics trying to dissuade women from having abortions

Jessica Glenza
Fri 4 Jun 2021

At least 10 US states have siphoned millions of dollars from federal block grants, meant to provide aid to their neediest families, to pay for the operations of ideological anti-abortion clinics.

These overwhelmingly Republican-led states used money from the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (Tanf), better known as welfare or direct cash aid, to fund the activities of anti-abortion clinics associated with the evangelical right. The clinics work to dissuade women from obtaining abortions.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/04/states-divert-federal-welfare-funding-anti-abortion-clinics

Reproductive Rights Advocates Call for Biden to Curb Foreign Abortion Restrictions

5/5/2021
by MICHELLE ONELLO, Ms. Magazine

A coalition of over 140 reproductive rights and health care advocates is calling on President Biden to mitigate the harm caused by the over-implementation of U.S. foreign aid restrictions, especially the 50-year-old Helms Amendment, which has limited access to and information about abortion overseas.

In the April 29 letter, advocates highlighted
the direct harm these restrictions cause women, especially victims of
conflict-related sexual violence, and their violation of the U.S.’s human
rights obligations to ensure gender equality and non-discriminatory,
comprehensive health care. While these restrictions were enacted by Congress,
the coalition is advocating for the Biden administration to curb their impact
and support efforts currently underway to repeal them—both to fulfill his
stated policy of support for sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR)
and to provide the same bold leadership on abortion that he has shown in other
areas such as climate change, jobs and infrastructure.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2021/05/05/reproductive-rights-biden-foreign-abortion-restrictions-helms-hyde/

Before the Capitol Attack, There Were the Abortion Wars

For reproductive rights defenders, the mood and some of the faces in the crowd were familiar.

By ALISSA QUART
FEB 04, 2021

Some 30 years ago a man named John Brockhoeft planned two bombings at abortion clinics and women’s health centers in Ohio and Florida. Brockhoeft was sentenced to seven years in prison (he served five) for the firebombing of one clinic; he had already served 26 months for scheming unsuccessfully to bomb another. Brockhoeft called himself a “freedom fighter” and kept a prison newsletter detailing his missions. It was an era when headlines were filled with the number of abortion providers who were either targeted or assassinated.

Three decades after his last clinic bombing, the same Brockhoeft livestreamed his arrival at the Capitol on Jan. 6. He called the moment his fight “for our beloved President Donald J. Trump.”

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/02/before-the-capitol-attack-there-were-the-abortion-wars.html

USA – They’re Doctors. They’re Also Incredibly Effective—and Dangerous—Anti-Abortion Activists.

They’re Doctors. They’re Also Incredibly Effective—and Dangerous—Anti-Abortion Activists.
Your OB-GYN could be one of them.

Marisa Endicott
June 4, 2020

In April 2019, when meetings like this still took place, Diane Foley took the stage in Indianapolis, looking out into the faces of anti-choice advocates and doctors who were gathered for their annual conference. The Health and Human Services official began her presentation: “Opportunities for Collaborative Engagement in Policy Development.” The bland, policy-wonkish title belied its almost-revolutionary substance: nothing less than a major shift in American health care—and a threat to the more than 4 million primarily low-income people who rely on a key government program for family planning and other care.

Title X, which Foley oversees as the head of the Office of Population Affairs—and which also includes the government’s teen pregnancy program—offers health care providers more than $286 million in funding each year. Just a month before her presentation, a new rule passed that would, for the first time, prohibit Title X recipients from performing abortions on-site or even providing abortion referrals. This effectively shut out a quarter of all clinics that were getting funding—including Planned Parenthood, which has traditionally received some $60 million a year from the program and provides more than 2.4 million patients with a slew of services, from birth control to cancer screenings to wellness exams.

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/06/american-association-pro-life-obstetricians-gynecologists-aaplog-anti-abortion-doctors-june-medical-supreme-court-decision/

04.06.2020