Abortion-ban states pour millions into pregnancy centers with little medical care

Louisiana offers up to $5 million in tax credits a year for donations to anti-abortion operations

BY: ANNA CLAIRE VOLLERS
AUGUST 24, 2023

After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, Louisiana Republican state Sen. Beth Mizell looked for a way to address her state’s abysmal record on infant and maternal mortality, preterm births and low birth weight. Louisiana has one of the nation’s strictest abortion bans, with no exceptions for rape or incest.

Mizell and her colleagues borrowed an idea from neighboring Mississippi: a state tax credit program that sends millions each year to nonprofit pregnancy resource centers, also called crisis pregnancy centers. They’re private anti-abortion organizations, often religiously affiliated, that typically offer free pregnancy tests, parenting classes and baby supplies. They are not usually staffed by doctors or nurses, though some offer limited ultrasounds or testing for sexually transmitted infections.

Continued: https://lailluminator.com/2023/08/24/abortion-ban-states-pour-millions-into-pregnancy-centers-with-little-medical-care/

USA – Fake abortion clinics ‘bigger than ever’

‘The Daily Show’ co-creator Lizz Winstead brought her group Abortion Action Front to Chicago to warn of traps set for the unwary.

By Neil Steinberg
Jul 16, 2023

Lizz Winstead was 17, a high school senior in Minnesota. “I was a Catholic teenager who found myself pregnant, making deals with God and myself,” said Winstead, now 61. “Pregnancy tests weren’t available.”

There was no internet. She saw an advertisement on the side of a bus about free pregnancy tests. She went to the address, an old house, oddly.

Continued: https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2023/7/16/23796601/abortion-clinics-fake-reproductive-rights-column-steingberg

Colorado: Lessons from a sanctuary state for abortion in the US

In this corner of the West, some of the most progressive laws in the country have been passed in response to the Supreme Court ruling that struck down ‘Roe vs Wade.’ It is the fruit of years of work by activists and Democratic politicians

Iker Seisdedos
JUL 10, 2023

The alarm that shook activist Aurea Bolaños into action was the Texas Heartbeat Act, which was passed in September 2021. Mirroring many rules that would follow, it banned abortions as early as six weeks of pregnancy, when most women do not yet know they are pregnant.

This was nine months before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade, the landmark ruling that established the constitutional right to abortion in 1973. Texas’ proximity to Colorado — the states share a border with Oklahoma, which followed with a similar abortion ban — prompted Bolaños, along with other activists and lawyers, to ask what legal safeguards protected reproductive freedom in Colorado. “The answer was: none,” she told EL PAÍS from an office in downtown Denver.

Continued: https://english.elpais.com/usa/2023-07-10/colorado-lessons-from-a-sanctuary-state-for-abortion-in-the-us.html

USA – Google earned $10m from ads misdirecting abortion seekers to ‘pregnancy crisis centers’

Study finds the search giant has profited since Roe was overturned from anti-abortion groups buying misleading search terms

Kari Paul
Thu 15 Jun 2023

Google has made millions of dollars in the last two years from advertisements misdirecting users who were seeking abortion services to “pregnancy crisis centers” that do not actually provide care, according to a new study.

The tech giant has taken in an estimated $10m in two years from anti-choice organizations that pay to advertise such centers alongside legitimate results on the Google search page, according to a new report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a non-profit group that conducts misinformation research. Its study, published on Thursday, estimates that the search results have reached and potentially misled hundreds of thousands of users.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jun/15/google-misleading-abortion-ads-pregnancy-crisis-centers

Crisis pregnancy centres outnumber abortion care clinics on Vancouver Island

A Nanaimo abortion provider says the centres confuse and misinform patients.

Tegwyn Hughes
August 11, 2022

On June 24, 2022, The House of Grace pregnancy centre opened its doors in central Duncan. Within days, a group of concerned citizens mobilized to publicly raise concerns about the new organization and other crisis pregnancy centres like it.

Unlike a women’s clinic or other medical clinic providing reproductive health care, crisis pregnancy centres are nonmedical organizations that offer counselling and support to pregnant people. They typically operate from a religiously informed view that life begins at conception and that preventing abortions is morally good.

Continued: https://thediscourse.ca/vancouver-island/crisis-pregnancy-centres-vancouver-island

Abortion pill reversal is a myth driven by the anti-abortion agenda

Since the reversal of Roe v. Wade, one of the lies that continues to spread is disinformation about abortion reversals

by Xenia Ellenbogen
August 11th, 2022

Misinformation about reproductive health is always circulating. But since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson struck down Roe v. Wade in June, disinformation about abortions is spreading like wildfire—and it can have some dangerous results. One of the lies spreading is abortion pill “reversal”—a myth proselytized and upheld by crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) or fake clinics with an anti-abortion agenda. Despite tenuous experimental research, CPCs purport that if people begin to have regrets about going through with an abortion after already starting the process, the person can halt the abortion after taking the first medication.

Continued: https://prismreports.org/2022/08/11/abortion-pill-reversal-myth-anti-abortion-agenda/

USA – Google misdirects one in 10 searches for abortion to ‘pregnancy crisis centers’

In US ‘trigger states’ where the procedure may soon be illegal, searchers may be sent to centers that do not actually provide care

Kari Paul
Thu 9 Jun 2022

One in 10 Google searches for abortion services in US “trigger states”, where the procedure is likely to become illegal if the US supreme court overturns Roe v Wade, are being misdirected to clinics known as “pregnancy crisis centers” that do not actually provide care, according to a new study.

After a leak revealed the US supreme court is on the verge of overturning the landmark abortion rights law Roe v Wade, attention has turned to “trigger law” states that would ban abortion immediately if the decades-old decision is undone.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/09/google-searches-abortion-clinics-pregnancy-crisis-centers

USA – Pregnancy Center Trap. And how not to fall for it.

By Claire Lampen, The Cut
May 23, 2022

Type “abortion clinic near me” into your browser, and the search engine will likely return some murky results. Websites that ask if you are pregnant and “Feeling overwhelmed?” or “Looking for an abortion?” — without actually allowing you to schedule one. You may see abortion mentioned only in the context of “risks.” Or you may just see a flurry of “free” services: pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, and counseling, all at zero cost. But “if a site or a center offers only free services,” says Andrea Swartzendruber, an associate professor at the University of Georgia’s College of Public Health, it may be a sign that you’ve found your way to a crisis pregnancy center: a sham medical practice designed to lure people considering abortions and pressure them into birth. Often, Swartzendruber explains, “there aren’t telltale signs” to differentiate a real clinic from a fake one, but “there could be hints.”

Continued: https://www.thecut.com/article/abortion-crisis-pregnancy-center.html

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/

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