Op-Ed: Anti-Abortion Centers Deceive Patients Every Day. Here’s How We Can Fight Back.

Anti-abortion centers, or “crisis pregnancy centers,” deceive and threaten the health of patients. Education is one of the best ways to help patients avoid these dangerous clinics.

By Rebecca Hart Holder | Originally published on Inequality.org

Four Women’s Health Services is a legitimate reproductive health care clinic and abortion provider in Attleboro, Massachusetts. Directly behind the short, square clinic is a larger white building with green trim, bearing the sign Attleboro Women’s Health Center. This facility advertises free ultrasounds, free pregnancy testing, and “pregnancy counseling.” Their website features the term “abortion” so many times that it is the first result when one locally Google searches “abortion clinic near me.” However, Attleboro Women’s Health Center does not provide abortions. It is, in fact, an anti-abortion center, commonly referred to as a “crisis pregnancy center” that aims to deceive, delay, and dissuade pregnant people from accessing abortion care. 

Anti-abortion centers are privately funded (and in some states, publicly financed), often religiously-associated, institutions that promote themselves as reproductive and sexual health care providers, but are typically not licensed to provide medical care. Frequently, like in Attleboro, they set up shop adjacent to legitimate care providers and use deceptive advertising, misleading names, and aggressive online and print advertising to trick patients into seeking care there when they may be pursuing abortion. Once patients are redirected to these deceptive facilities, they are subjected to enormous amounts of disinformation about abortion care, usually delivered in such a fashion that patients are dissuaded from seeking abortion or believe they cannot seek abortion. These centers deliberately target low-income people, communities of color, or non-English speaking communities with deceptive advertising and the promise of “free services”— but it always comes with a catch.

Anti-abortion centers do not provide medically-accurate health information. From stigmatizing medical lies to staff practicing out of their scope, patients do not receive credible health information at these facilities. We saw this up close in Worcester, Massachusetts when a patient unknowingly visited an anti-abortion center, Clearway Clinic, to confirm her pregnancy. The patient was told by a nurse, allegedly practicing out of her scope of practice, that her pregnancy was healthy and in utero. Weeks later, the patient learned that she had been given a misdiagnosis, and was actually experiencing an ectopic pregnancy when she was forced to undergo emergency surgery that resulted in the loss of her fallopian tube.

Because most anti-abortion centers are not licensed medical institutions, they are also not subject to regulations on privacy for patient data, such as HIPAA. Patient data is often stored on insecure servers, and harbored without the consent of patients, allowing them to surveil people as they navigate their reproductive health care — an increasingly alarming threat in a post-Roe world.

Anti-abortion centers promote abortion stigma and interrupt access to care by spewing disinformation about how abortion works. These facilities are meant to confuse, deceive, dissuade, and shame patients for making their own informed choices about their reproductive futures. Even in states with legal protections for abortion access, these centers serve as the footsoldiers of the anti-abortion movement, creating barriers to accessing urgent and necessary reproductive health care.

Nationally, there are somewhere between 2,500 and 4,000 anti-abortion centers, around three times the number of abortion clinics. The disparity is worse in abortion-hostile states, and after the Dobbs decision these centers are emboldened and continuing to expand their operations in all 50 states across the country. Before Dobbs the ratio of anti-abortion centers to abortion clinics in Texas was 9 to 1. Now, abortion is banned in the state and very few reproductive health clinics remain to provide critical resources to those who may not otherwise be able to access affordable reproductive care. 

Fortunately, we have a powerful tool to fight back. It begins with public education. Public education is key to public health, and protected states can play a critical role to ensure residents have the tools and resources they need to make informed reproductive health care decisions, and avoid dangerous and deceptive anti-abortion centers.

In Massachusetts, Reproductive Equity Now is working with the Department of Public Health to inoculate our communities against the more than 30 anti-abortion centers in the commonwealth. This past June, Massachusetts launched a first-in-the-nation public education campaign to ensure residents are well-informed about the dangers of these deceptive facilities. We are proud to be the subject-matter experts for the development of this historic campaign.

The campaign ads, which run in English and Spanish throughout the state, amplify how critical it is that patients “avoid anti-abortion centers.” The campaign directs people to a Massachusetts Department of Public Health web page with information on how to recognize and report anti-abortion centers, and where to access unbiased, full-spectrum reproductive health care in Massachusetts. 

Even in states where abortion access is protected by law, more work is required to truly empower patients to seek the care that is right for them — and a public education campaign is an effective and impactful place to start. 

We recognize that we are privileged to be residents of Massachusetts and enjoy the support of our elected leaders in our efforts to combat the disinformation proliferated by anti-abortion centers. But residents in states without this level of institutional support can still work to protect patients from these centers through grassroots work. We’ve seen informative, creative grassroots education materials produced by movement allies across the country – even in places where these centers receive state funding. Person-to-person conversations with friends, family, and neighbors are an excellent place to start. Make sure your loved ones know what anti-abortion centers are, how to avoid them, and where they can access legitimate reproductive health care in their communities.

Repro Equity Now has created the New England Abortion Care Guide, which has all of the information necessary to see abortion care in all six New England states. We also collaborated with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office to create the Abortion Legal Hotline, a free and confidential legal helpline for patients and providers. Beyond New England, patients seeking legitimate abortion care can find clinics near them using www.ineedana.com and legal advice from If When How at www.reprolegalhelpline.org. 

There are a lot of unknowns facing abortion seekers today, and the process of seeking abortion care in this nation continues to be cumbersome for many patients, even in protected states. However, information is power, and we are putting power in the hands of our communities by raising awareness about anti-abortion centers in Massachusetts and across the country.