USA – The Fake Clinics Taking Over Reproductive Healthcare

As abortion clinics disappear nationwide, “crisis pregnancy centers” are transforming reproductive healthcare into a far-right fantasy—quietly collecting hundreds of millions in public funds as Medicaid faces historic cuts.

Sonia Chajet Wides
February 3, 2026

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. — A small crowd of abortion rights advocates gathered at a public comment session of the Gwinnett County Department of Planning and Development in July 2025. The most diverse and second-most populous county in Georgia, Gwinnett County distributed millions of dollars in U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grants to local nonprofits in 2025, with most recipients receiving something in the tens of thousands.

One organization, Georgia Wellness Group, was set to receive a much bigger prize: $450,000.

Continued: https://inthesetimes.com/article/fake-clinics-crisis-pregnancy-abortion-reproductive-healthcare

Supreme Court case about ‘crisis pregnancy centers’ highlights debate over truthful advertising standards

December 17, 2025
Carly Thomsen

The latest Supreme Court case related to abortion is not technically about the legal right to have one. When the court heard oral arguments on Dec. 2, 2025, the word “abortion” came up only three times. The first instance was more than an hour into the 82-minute hearing.

Instead, First Choice Women’s Resource Centers Inc. v. Platkin hinges on whether First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and association give a chain of five crisis pregnancy centers in New Jersey the right to protect its donor records from disclosure to state authorities. The centers are Christian nonprofits that try to stop pregnant women from obtaining abortions.

Continued: https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-case-about-crisis-pregnancy-centers-highlights-debate-over-truthful-advertising-standards-271254

How Abortion Pill “Reversal” Became a Powerful Right-Wing Legal Weapon

Blue-state attempts to crack down on the treatment could end up shielding “fake clinics” from any oversight.

Garnet Henderson, Susan Rinkunas, Mother Jones
Oct 15, 2025

Crisis pregnancy centers have played a central role in the anti-abortion movement since the 1960s, often misleading and confusing people seeking abortions while purporting to help them. They mimic the appearance of abortion clinics, with similar-sounding names and even lookalike logos. Their volunteers sometimes pose as clinic staff to divert abortion patients from getting care. Their websites are teeming with disinformation, including claims that abortion is unsafe or linked to future mental illness, breast cancer, and fertility issues. “A killer, who in this case is the girl who wants to kill her baby, has no right to information that will help her kill her baby,” Robert Pearson, founder of the very first CPC in the US, once declared.

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/10/how-abortion-pill-reversal-became-a-powerful-right-wing-legal-weapon/

UK – What is the truth about crisis pregnancy centres? The anti-abortion facilities creeping across Britain

Many faith-based crisis pregnancy centres are believed to offer an 'ethical' service, but there are some which have been found to be 'misleading' women. It is becoming increasingly difficult to tell which as centres may 'hide their ideological aims'

Isabella McRae
14 Oct 2025

Crisis pregnancy centres, which have been known to “misinform” women around abortion, have become increasingly “professionalised” in the UK and are often unregulated, experts have warned.

These centres are commonly run by Christian groups and promise to offer “impartial” and “ethical” advice for free, but some have been found to be promoting “medically inaccurate” information with an anti-abortion agenda which risks leaving women “traumatised”.

Continued: https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/abortion-uk-crisis-pregnancy-centres/

USA – We Need to Talk About ICE and Anti-Abortion Centers

These groups prey on immigrant women and collect their data. It's not hard to imagine what happens next.

Kylie Cheung
Jul 24, 2025

We all know anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers don’t offer real health care. They set up shop near actual clinics to lure in potential abortion seekers, collect their data, and inundate them with disinformation designed to dissuade them from seeking abortion. But under the Trump administration, these over-funded fake clinics are situated to play another potential role: enforcing Republicans’ racist immigration policies by targeting vulnerable, pregnant immigrant women.

And because CPCs aren’t real health providers, many aren’t bound to the same medical privacy laws. That means they can share people’s personal information with the government—and many do, as a condition of receiving state funding. CPCs have become the enforcement arm of not just the anti-abortion movement, but also, increasingly, the government itself.

Continued: https://jessica.substack.com/p/we-need-to-talk-about-ice-and-anti

24.07.2025

CPCs

crisis pregnancy centers

Heartbeat International

HIPAA violations

immigrants and abortion access

National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice

Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy Biotechnology and Bioethics

privacy of health information

Susannah Baruch

Thriving Families program

South Africa – Dr Dusi, Dr Google, stigma and all the other reasons pregnant women are risking their lives

In today’s newsletter, Tanya Pampalone and Mia Malan explain why South Africa still has unsafe abortions.

By Bhekisisa Team
May 5, 2025

There are piles of R100 notes, a hand holding a tinted vial, a small plastic bag of brown herbs and a bloody sanitary pad with a message in green type: “Thank you Dr Dusi. Now I’m Free.” There is also a phone number where, presumably, you’ll find someone at the other end of the line eager to help.

If Dr Dusi doesn’t pick up, or, more likely, has changed his number, don’t worry. There are plenty of others to call. Dozens of them.

Continued: https://bhekisisa.org/health-news-south-africa/2025-05-05-dr-dusi-dr-google-stigma-and-all-the-other-reasons-pregnant-women-are-risking-their-lives/

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

Republican-led states have piloted a dramatic infusion of taxpayer funding into the CPC industry. With Republicans in the White House and U.S. Congress, they are certain to ramp up federal funding for antiabortion centers.

January 3, 2025
by Jenifer McKenna

Within days of the election, antiabortion leaders started calling on the incoming administration to defund Planned Parenthood and family planning clinics that refer patients for abortion, and redirect that funding to “pro-life” pregnancy centers.

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.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2025/01/03/trump-congress-republicans-funding-crisis-pregnancy-centers-abortion-clinic-women-health/

‘Here to Help’: US-Inspired Anti-Abortion Groups Put Down Roots in Bosnia

Taking money and inspiration from the United States, anti-abortion groups are growing in influence in Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes with public funding too.

Azra Husaric Omerovic, Sarajevo, BIRN
December 20, 2024

Voice for Life markets itself as a counselling centre, a place where women considering abortion can come for advice, without being judged.

“If you are confused, don’t know what to do, need to talk or get emotional support, we are here for you,” the Sarajevo-based organisation says on its website. “You don’t have to go through this alone. We understand; we don’t judge, and we’re here to help resolve any uncertainty you face.”

Continued: https://balkaninsight.com/2024/12/20/here-to-help-us-inspired-anti-abortion-groups-put-down-roots-in-bosnia/

20.12.2024

Commentary

Heartbeat International

Letitia James

Voice For Life

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Europe

Anti-choice

Politics

Crisis pregnancy center’s forms give rare insight into anti-abortion practices

The free organizations offer counseling while trying to dissuade women from having abortions. They promise to protect health data but aren’t bound by federal privacy law.

Oct. 13, 2024
by Abigail Brooks

A free family planning center in Twin Falls, Idaho, asks its visitors for sensitive, private information, including nonmedical questions about religion and financial status, according to documents obtained by NBC News.

While the Sage Women’s Center promises to protect the information of its clients, it isn’t bound by medical privacy laws and may be misleading women who are coping with unplanned pregnancies, consumer advocates say.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/womens-health/crisis-pregnancy-centers-forms-privacy-abortion-rcna172566

Puerto Rico – Anti-abortion centers without health regulations deceive those seeking abortion

Three anti-abortion centers advertise themselves as offering medical services, sonograms and information about abortions and abortion pills, even though they are not regulated by the Department of Health. People who come to their facilities, lured by confusing language, share their personal information, not knowing that they will then receive false information and multiple follow-up calls urging them to continue with a pregnancy they do not want.

Sept 26, 2024
Photos by Brandon Cruz González | Center for Investigative Journalism
by Cindy Burgos | ALL and Center for Investigative Journalism

They look like ordinary medical offices — with scrubs -clad employees offering free sonograms and pregnancy tests — but they are not. They are called “crisis pregnancy centers,” and while they promote themselves as places that provide scientific medical information about options for an unwanted pregnancy, in practice, they are anti-abortion centers that use techniques of deception, manipulation, incomplete or false information, and from a religious perspective, to convince pregnant people to continue with a pregnancy they do not want.

There are three such pseudoclinics in Puerto Rico: two Hope Women's Clinics in Río Piedras and Bayamón; and Centro Raquel in Carolina. All are located near or next to one of the four clinics in Puerto Rico that offer abortion services, an essential health procedure that can only be performed by a licensed physician.

Continued: https://periodismoinvestigativo.com/2024/09/centros-antiaborto-sin-regulacion-salud-puerto-rico/