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"Crisis Pregnancy Centers"

What is a Crisis Pregnancy Center?

Crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) are fake 'clinics' most often run by anti-choice organizations that advertise free services to women facing unintended pregnancies. Many CPCs are run by or affiliated with national networks, such as CareNet, Bethany Christian Services, Birthright, and Heartbeat International. The most common services publicly offered include free pregnancy testing, onsite ultrasound or ultrasound referrals, counseling, and short-term materials or healthcare assistance. Some CPCs also operate or work in connection with adoption agencies. The majority of CPCs are volunteer-run, though some have medically-licensed staff onsite, often working as volunteers. Currently, there are more than 65 CPCs operating throughout Virginia.

While many CPCs claim to provide unbiased information and assistance to pregnant women, their fundamental goal is to dissuade a woman from exploring the full range of reproductive health options and to do whatever it takes to pressure her to make the choice they want. To achieve this goal, CPC volunteers often provide women concerned about unintended pregnancies with medically-inaccurate and intentionally deceptive information on reproductive health, fetal development, contraception, sexually transmitted infections, and abortion. They even seek to dissuade women from using condoms or birth control to prevent unintended pregnancy in the future.

In addition, CPCs often encourage women to delay their decision-making, resulting in a far more time and resource-constricted decision. In Virginia, abortions can only be performed in outpatient women's health clinics in the first trimester, up to fourteen weeks (second trimester abortions are available only in a hospital). Many CPCs capitalize on this limited time frame by overstating the likelihood of a miscarriage in the first trimester to women considering abortion. CPCs have also been known to either suggest that a woman is earlier along in pregnancy than she is, making her think she has more time to consider her decisions, or that gestational development is farther along than it actually is, making women wrongly assume that an abortion at that point is not an accessible option.

Women facing unintended pregnancy or trying to make personal decisions about their options deserve honest, medically-accurate information and real support for making the choices that are right for them. NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia has been the leader in documenting and exposing the practices of CPCs in Virginia and the detrimental effect they have on public health and women's reproductive freedom.

Please visit the links below to learn more about these dangerous fake 'clinics,' read about their tactics and misinformation, and see how you can take action on our campaign to ensure they don't receive state funding.
 
Additional Information:
Read about our year-long undercover investigation of CPCs.
Read about the deceptive tactics CPCs typically employ.
Find websites of organizations that can offer judgment-free, medically accurate information as you make a decision about an unintended pregnancy.
View a map of many of the CPCs in our state!
Read some of the common lies that CPCs tell women, as well as factually-cited responses to such erroneous claims.
Read a few pieces in major news journals about CPCs.
Learn more about how you can take action and share your own stories about CPCs.
 
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