States to award anti-abortion centers roughly $250m in post-Roe surge

At least 16 states will fund largely unregulated facilities that try to convince people to continue their pregnancies

Carter Sherman
thu 28 Dec 2023

In the months since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, at least 16 states have agreed to funnel more than $250m in taxpayer dollars towards anti-abortion facilities and programs that try to convince people to continue their pregnancies.

Much of that money is set to go to anti-abortion counseling centers, or crisis pregnancy centers, according to data provided by the Guttmacher Institute and Equity Forward, organizations that support abortion rights. It has been paid out throughout 2023 and will stretch into 2025.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/28/anti-abortion-pregnancy-crisis-centers-taxpayer-money-roe

USA – A woman who mistakenly visited an anti-abortion crisis pregnancy center said she was met with pushback for seeking an abortion

'I just was not ready, and words can't make you ready for that'

Hannah Getahun, Isabella Zavarise, and Katie Nixdorf
Dec 5, 2022

Estefanía thought she was making an appointment to get an abortion.

Fearing she might be pregnant after a missed period, she typed "abortion pill near me" into Google and went to the first clinic that came up on the web page. When she got to The Keim Center in Virginia Beach, it didn't look or smell like a medical clinic — it was too nice, too inviting.

Continued: https://www.businessinsider.com/crisis-pregnancy-centers-target-women-seeking-abortions-with-misinformation-pushback-2022-11

The crisis pregnancy center next door: How taxpayer money intended for poor families is funding a growing anti-abortion movement

By Casey Tolan, Majlie de Puy Kamp and Isabelle Chapman. Photographs by Maddie McGarvey for CNN
Tue October 25, 2022

A few blocks from the Ohio State University campus in Columbus, America’s battle over abortion is playing out under one roof.

On one side of a squat single-story office building, a Planned Parenthood clinic offers reproductive health care and refers patients for abortions. Next door is a branch of Pregnancy Decision Health Center, a crisis pregnancy center that offers counseling and support for pregnant women – but also works to dissuade them from terminating their pregnancies and has been accused of promoting misinformation about abortion.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/25/us/crisis-pregnancy-centers-taxpayer-money-invs

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