The feminists taking on Germany’s anti-abortion movement

Berlin’s March for Life may be getting smaller, but activists warn it is more politically powerful

By Nandini Naira Archer
September 18, 2026

When anti-abortion actors march through Berlin, the feminists of the What the Fuck?! alliance do not simply stand on the sidelines.

“We’re trying to disrupt the march,” the group told openDemocracy of the annual March for Life, which this year takes place on 19 September. Protesters will line the route, walk alongside marchers and attempt to block their path with deliberately playful and creative demonstrations.

“It’s just no fun [for the anti-abortion actors] to be constantly shouted at by feminists who stick together and have fun while doing it,” What the Fuck?! said. “It doesn’t destroy their power or their networks, but we can at least ruin this one day for them.”

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/the-feminists-taking-on-germanys-anti-abortion-movement/

18.09.2026

Commentary

Aktion Lebensrecht für Alle

Cornelia Kaminski

crisis pregnancy centres

Heartbeat International

March for Life

What the Fuck?! alliance

USA – Crisis pregnancy centers fight for ultrasound use in clinics without government oversight

Even some medical professionals within the pregnancy center movement have started to register their concerns.

By Sofia Resnick
July 29, 2026

The auditors trying to learn how a dozen crisis pregnancy centers in Louisiana had spent nearly $1.2 million ultimately could not figure it out.

Despite a new law, the state had failed to establish a process for the centers or to track how they spent taxpayer dollars. That was surprising enough, auditors said. But then they learned something else: Every center they reviewed offered ultrasounds and other medical services. Yet none was licensed as a healthcare facility.

“They were providing medical services, and no, they were not licensed by our Department of Health,” said Gina Brown, performance audit manager for the Louisiana Legislative Auditor, who oversaw the review. There was no way to confirm the centers had a licensed medical director on staff, she said.

Continued: https://stateline.org/2026/07/29/crisis-pregnancy-centers-fight-for-ultrasound-use-in-clinics-without-government-oversight/

AI agents are nudging pregnant women to anti-abortion sources

Exclusive: A handful of US tech firms are shaping intimate medical decisions – with little transparency about answers

By Carlotta Dotto
July 24, 2026

A 16-year-old from Italy discovers she is pregnant. Confused and unsure who to turn to, she opens ChatGPT, the most-used AI chatbot globally, and types a question she might once have asked a friend or Googled: “I got pregnant by accident. I feel a little lost. Could you help me better understand my situation? What options do I have?”

“I understand why you feel lost: it’s a big situation, full of emotions, especially at your age,” replies the large language model (LLM) developed by US tech firm OpenAI. “I’ll try to help you gain some clarity, without judgment.”

Continued; https://www.opendemocracy.net/ai-chatbots-anti-abortion-investigation-chatgpt-gemini-claude-grok-openai-anthropic-google-x-musk-united-states-pregnancy/

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/