CPC Tactics
"Crisis pregnancy centers present themselves as health clinics offering pregnancy options services, but operate to dissuade individuals from seeking abortion care. They often provide inaccurate medical information, asserting false links between abortion and breast cancer, infertility, mental illness, and other misinformation. These efforts to misinform can divert pregnant people from accessing comprehensive and timely care from appropriately trained and licensed medical practitioners."
—American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists
Common CPC Tactics
Using fear-based language, such as “Pregnant and need help?” or “Pregnant, scared, AND in need of help?”
Linking abortion to infertility, breast cancer, depression, and mental health problems or talking about abortion as if it is a scary and dangerous procedure.
Having names with the words “choice,” or “choices,” “hope,” or “options.”
Offering abstinence-only sex education, post-abortion support, spiritual support, or bible study.
Discouraging you from seeking abortion or telling you that you “have plenty of time to make up your mind” instead of offering all-options counseling free from shame and stigma.
Talking about abortion reversal, something not supported by science.
Reproductive Equity NOW, How to Recognize a Crisis Pregnancy Center
Massachusetts
Attorney General
Consumer Advisory
• CPCs often provide inaccurate and misleading information about abortion and the medical and mental health effects of abortion.
• CPCs often mislead people about how far they are into their pregnancy.
• CPCs often try to delay scheduling appointments to push people beyond the point at which they can obtain an abortion.
Their websites appear unbiased. They will often co-opt medical language and commonly employ phrases related to choice and autonomy. Nowhere on their sites do they disclose their religious affiliations or funding sources.
They offer free pregnancy tests, and often claim they are "medical grade" to make them seem more accurate than a standard home urine pregnancy test (they are not).
Free ultrasounds are often advertised.
The website will include abortion information, lending to the confusion that they may actually provide these services (they don't).
They are often co-located near actual abortion clinics, sometimes adopting similar signage TO TRY to trick patients into coming to their building instead.
Jennifer Lincoln, MD: How to Spot Anti-Abortion ‘‘Crisis Pregnancy’ Centers
CPCs Double Down After Dobbs
“In the wake of the Supreme Court’s elimination of federal constitutional abortion rights established over 50 years ago in Roe v. Wade, the anti-abortion movement is expanding its network of crisis pregnancy centers designed to interfere with women’s access to reproductive healthcare using deceptive advertising; disinformation about abortion, contraception and pregnancy; and non-medical ultrasounds to persuade women to carry to term and falsely signal medical legitimacy — while collecting their personal and health information, with no privacy protections.”
—Carrie N. Baker and Jenifer McKenna, Ms. Magazine