April 29, 2026
Sarah Wetter, Rebecca Reingold, Sophie Samson - O'Neill Institute

Imagine arriving at a clinic for a common medical procedure listed on the clinic’s website, only to learn that the clinic neither provides it nor refers to providers who do. Instead, the staff attempts to dissuade you from obtaining the procedure using moral arguments and scientifically inaccurate information. While disconcerting, this scenario plays out regularly in the thousands of unregulated pregnancy clinics (UPCs) (often referred to as crisis pregnancy centers) across the United States, as well as in other countries.

UPCs are nonprofit clinics, often religiously affiliated, that offer services like free pregnancy tests and ultrasounds with the intent of diverting and dissuading individuals from seeking abortion. UPCs have been criticized for falsely advertising themselves as full-service reproductive health clinics (e.g., depicting staff wearing stethoscopes or scrubs on their websites, or by claiming to provide “Options Counseling”), despite not providing services like abortion or abortion referrals, contraception, miscarriage management, or treatment for ectopic pregnancy. As UPCs are not staffed by medical providers and do not offer medical services (despite what their advertising may suggest), UPCs and their staff are not subject to regulatory oversight or federal privacy protections. Medical experts have warned that UPCs endanger health by delaying or preventing abortion care and promoting unproven and potentially dangerous treatments, such as abortion “reversal.”

Continued: https://oneill.law.georgetown.edu/an-international-human-rights-approach-to-unregulated-pregnancy-centers/