Stay Informed About Crisis Pregnancy Centers
By: Eloise DiCola
What are Crisis Pregnancy Centers?
When you google ‘sexual healthcare near me’ your results will likely be Planned Parenthood, local sexual healthcare clinics, and likely a few Crisis Pregnancy Centers. The term Crisis Pregnancy Center (or CPC) refers to a non-profit facility that intentionally mispresents itself as a healthcare center, despite being unregulated and lacking the requirements that healthcare centers follow of regulatory, licensure, and credentialing oversight. CPC’s have an agenda to shame and pressure patients out of accessing reproductive healthcare like abortion or even contraception. These ‘clinics’ are often associated with national anti-abortion organizations or evangelical Christian groups.
Crisis Pregnancy Centers will try to appear like any other sexual healthcare clinic, and they may even be named similarly to other real local clinics. These facilities also often state on their website that they provide a variety of free pregnancy resources, but they do not provide a full range of safe regulated healthcare, their goal is to spread misinformation and propaganda about pregnancy and abortion.
How can I identify a CPC from a clinic?
Luckily, there are some ways that we can distinguish a CPC from a real sexual healthcare clinic. Some signs that a clinic is a CPC are:
They are listed online as a pregnancy care center, pregnancy resource center, women’s resource center, pro-life pregnancy center or abortion alternative.
They advertise free services such as pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, STI testing, options education, abortion counseling and post-abortion care.
They report that abortion is unsafe and can lead to greater health risks such as cancer, infertility or mental health problems.
Note: THIS IS NOT TRUE! Abortion is a safe medical procedure when carried out by a medical professional.
If they do not provide effective birth control methods such as condoms or the pill, patch, IUD, ring, shot or implant. Many CPC’s only ‘birth control’ offered is abstinence counseling.
They take a negative stance on abortion, sex, birth control, or LGBTQ+.
They try to pressure you into continuing a pregnancy.
They try to talk to you about religious values even if you don’t want to talk about them.
Do we have any in Montana?
Unfortunately, yes, there are at least 17 centers in Montana. But you can use this website to identify where they are located near you.
How did CPCs start?
Robert Pearson started the first Crisis Pregnancy Center in Honolulu in 1967 in response to the legalization of abortion in Hawaii. He later started the anti-choice Pearson Foundation with the goal of creating more CPC’s. CPC’s do not only exist in the United States, but they grew rapidly here in response to Roe v Wade in 1973 which generally protected the right to have an abortion. Now in the US, CPC’s (estimated 2,500 – 4,000) outnumber regulated abortion clinics in the US, and they see 1 million patients annually.
Can I still get healthcare from a CPC?
While CPC’s purposefully give the impression that they are medical clinics with medical expertise, they do not provide a full range of reproductive healthcare. Oftentimes their staff consist of volunteers and employees who lack medical training or a medical license despite presenting themselves differently.
CPCs also do not have to follow HIPAA guidelines, meaning your medical visit and information you provide them is not protected and can be distributed without your knowledge. This information has led to harassment from third party anti-choice groups in some cases.
While the topic of CPC’s can be frustrating, it is important to remember the secure and safe resources that you have near you—like Bridgercare! We can help anyone regardless of income or citizenship status thanks to our sliding fee scale, so patients can pay as little as $0 based on income, making Bridgercare accessible for everyone. So, call our front desk at (406) 587-0681 or schedule an appointment on our website for your sexual healthcare needs.