CPC Research & Reports
Designed to Deceive
“Crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) are anti-abortion organizations that seek to reach low-income people facing unintended pregnancies to prevent them from accessing abortion and contraception. CPCs advance this mission by using deceptive and coercive tactics and medical disinformation, and misleadingly presenting themselves as medical facilities. The modern CPC industry, a well-resourced arm of the global anti-abortion movement, is rapidly expanding while evading public accountability, despite increasing reliance on public funds.”
—Designed to Deceive: A Study of the Crisis Pregnancy Center Industry in Nine States
Profiting From Deceit: How Google Profits From Anti-Choice Ads Distorting Searches for Reproductive Healthcare, Center for Countering Digital Hate, 2023
Seven Reasons Why Anti-Abortion Centers are a Problem, Not a Solution, Equity Forward, 2022
In The Grand Scheme: Six Sinister Tactics Employed By Anti-Abortion Centers, Equity Forward, 2022
The Threat of CPCs To The Future of Abortion Access, National Center for Responsive Philanthropy, 2022
Google Serves Anti-Abortion Clinic Ads that Violate its Policies, Tech Transparency Project, 2022
1 in 10 Abortion Searches Results in “Trigger Law” States Leads to Anti-Abortion Fake Clinics, Center for Countering Digital Hate, 2022
The CPC Industry as a Surveillance Tool of the Post-Roe State, The Alliance: State Advocates for Women’s Rights & Gender Equality, 2022
Designed to Deceive: A Study of the Crisis Pregnancy Center Industry in Nine States, The Alliance: State Advocates for Women’s Rights & Gender Equality, 2021
Mapping Deception: A Closer Look at How States’ Anti-Abortion Center Programs Operate, Equity Forward, 2021
Endangering Women for Profit: How Facebook and Google Sell Ad Space for Dangerous Medical Misinformation About So Called “Abortion Reversals”, Center for Countering Digital Hate, 2021
A Documentation of Data Exploitation in Sexual and Reproductive Rights, Privacy International, 2020
Crisis Pregnancy Centers Lie: The Insidious Threat to Reproductive Freedom, NARAL Pro-Choice America, 2015
Investigative Reports
Infographic: National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy
What Medical Organizations Say
American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists (ACOG)
Issue Brief: Crisis Pregnancy Centers, Oct. 2022
“People seeking reproductive health care must have access to comprehensive, evidence-based, nonjudgmental health care and information from qualified professionals, regardless of whether they decide to continue a pregnancy or seek abortion care. It's important that people understand their options and know their resources—including how to recognize and avoid facilities, such as crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs), run by people who operate unethically and with the intention to dissuade, deter, or prevent them from seeking certain reproductive health care options.”
Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine & North American Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology:
A Joint Position Statement on Crisis Pregnancy Centers in the United States:
Lack of Adherence to Medical and Ethical Practice Standards, Dec. 2019
CPCs pose risk by failing to adhere to medical and ethical practice standards;
Governments should only support health programs that provide accurate, comprehensive information;
CPCs and individuals who provide CPC services should be held to established standards of ethics and medical care;
Schools should not outsource sexual education to CPCs or other entities that do not provide accurate and complete health information;
Search engines and digital platforms should enforce policies against misleading advertising by CPCs; and
Health professionals should educate themselves, and young people about CPCs and help young people identify safe, quality sources of sexual and reproductive health information and care.
Scholarly Research
The Problems with Crisis Pregnancy Centers: Reviewing the Literature and Identifying New Directions for Future Research by Melissa Montoya, Colleen Judge-Golden & Jonas Swartz, 2022, International Journal of Women's Health
Patient Experiences at California Crisis Pregnancy Centers: A Mixed-Methods Analysis of Online Crowd-Sourced Reviews, 2010-2019 by Elaine Chan et al., 2022, Southern Medical Journal
Animating and sustaining outrage: The Place of Crisis Pregnancy Centers in Abortion Justice by Carly Thomsen et al., 2022, Human Geography
U.S. Anti-Abortion Ideology on the Move: Mobile Crisis Pregnancy Centers as Unruly, Unmappable, Ungovernable by Carly Thomsen et al., 2022, Political Geography
Comparing Website Identification for Crisis Pregnancy Centers and Abortion Clinics by Jonas Swartz et al., 2021, Women's Health Issues
“Gummy Bears” and “Teddy Grahams”: Ultrasounds as religious biopower in Crisis Pregnancy Centers by Kendra Hutchens, 2021, Social Science and Medicine
Truth and Transparency in Crisis Pregnancy Centers by Carly Polcyn et al., 2020, Women's Health Reports
Pregnant Women's Reasons for and Experiences of Visiting Antiabortion Pregnancy Resource Centers by Katrina Kimport, 2020, Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health
Crisis at the Pregnancy Center: Regulating Pseudo-Clinics and Reclaiming Informed Consent by Teneille R. Brown, 2019, Yale Journal of Law & Feminism
Crisis Pregnancy Centers: Faith Centers Operating in Bad Faith by Sonya Borrero, Susan Frietsche & Christine Dehlendorf, 2019, Journal of General Internal Medicine
Why Crisis Pregnancy Centers Are Legal But Unethical by Amy Bryant & Jonas Swartz, 2018, AMA Journal of Ethics
Quality of Information Available Online for Abortion Self-Referral by Laura E. Dodge et al, 2018, Obstetrics & Gynecology
Contraceptive Information on Pregnancy Resource Center Websites: A Statewide Content Analysis by Andrea Swartzendruber et al., 2018, Contraception
Racial Reconciliation or Spiritual Smokescreens?: Blackwashing the Crisis Pregnancy Center Movement by Kimberly Kelly & Amanda Gochanour, 2018, Qualitative Sociology
What Women Seek from a Pregnancy Resource Center by Katrina Kimport, J Parker Dockery & Shelly Dodson, 2016, Contraception
Crisis Pregnancy Center Websites: Information, Misinformation and Disinformation by Amy Bryant et al., 2014, Contraception
The Spread of ‘Post Abortion Syndrome’ as Social Diagnosis by Kimberly Kelly, 2014, Social Science & Medicine