Across the country, as the number of abortion clinics has dwindled, there’s actually been a rise in the network of CPCs. Anti-choice organizations say that more than 3,500 crisis pregnancy centers are currently in operation.
NARAL Pro-Choice America has conducted undercover investigations in 10 different states to document what happens when women facing an unintended pregnancy find themselves in one of those fake clinics. In California specifically, the organization trained six investigators who visited 45 centers in 19 counties — more than 25 percent of the estimated 167 different CPCs in the state.
One of those investigators, 19-year-old volunteer Cristina — who asked not to be identified by her real name — attended counseling sessions at dozens of CPCs, and said she was amazed they all ended up blending together. “It’s like everyone was trained by one person. I heard the same thing over and over again,” Cristina said.
When Cristina told CPC employees that she was unexpectedly pregnant and didn’t think she wanted to have a baby, she always heard the same information about how abortion is supposedly linked to breast cancer, depression, and infertility. One employee told her that ending the pregnancy might puncture her uterus and close her Fallopian tubes, preventing her from having any more children in the future. One counselor asked her how she would have felt if her own mother had aborted her. Another told her she should “stop whoring around.”
My favorite part of this article is the fact that two places one of the undercovers went to identified her IUD as a fetus during ultrasounds. These people have no medical training, and yet they are operating with federal funds? Why on earth are there federal funds going to a place that lies to people about their health and pregnancies? How is that not recognized as being super dangerous?
