What is a Crisis Pregnancy Center? What is a Pregnancy Resource Center?

Question: What is a Crisis Pregnancy Center? What is a Pregnancy Resource Center?

Answer: Crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) -- also known as pregnancy resource centers -- provide counseling to pregnant teenagers and women. Often advertising themselves as women's health clinics, many do not actually have medical staff or a doctor on the premises. Virtually all of them are pro-life centers and do not offer abortion services or make referrals to abortion providers. Many CPCs are affiliated with national pro-life umbrella organizations such as Heartbeat International and CareNet; the latter describes itself as "a Christian ministry assisting and promoting the evangelistic, pro-life work of pregnancy centers in North America."

The intent of these centers is to discourage teens and women from choosing abortion. While some state up front that they provide abortion alternatives -- not abortion services -- and will not make abortion referrals, many do not. Instead, they try to appear politically neutral to attract teens and young women seeking abortion information.

The counseling and information provided often includes statements that are "false and misleading" according to the findings of a 2006 government investigation known as the Waxman Report.

Many pregnancy resource centers receive federal funding, a practice that began under the Bush Administration. From 2001-2005, over $30 million in federal funds went to these centers.

Concerned with how these monies were being spent, in 2004 Representative Henry A. Waxman (D-California) asked the Special Investigations Division to evaluate federally funded pregnancy resource centers. Posing as pregnant 17-year-olds, female investigators contacted 25 pregnancy resource centers, 23 of which spoke to the "teens" by phone.

The findings of the investigators, released in a July 2006 report by the House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform, showed that most of the CPCs contacted gave medically inaccurate information to the callers:

The vast majority of the federally funded pregnancy resource centers contacted during the investigation provided information about the risks of abortion that was false or misleading. In many cases, this information was grossly inaccurate or distorted. A pregnant teenager who relied on the information from these federally funded centers would make her decision about whether to give birth or terminate her pregnancy based on erroneous facts and misinformation.

In total, 87% of the centers reached (20 of 23 centers) provided false or misleading information to the callers. The three major areas of misinformation involved (1) the purported relationship between abortion and breast cancer; (2) the purported relationship between abortion and infertility; and (3) the purported relationship between abortion and mental illness.

The Waxman Report determined that by denying "teenagers and women vital health information," the scare tactic used by crisis pregnancy centers/pregnancy resource centers "is not an accepted public health practice."

The report's final conclusion:

Pregnant teenagers and women turn to federally funded pregnancy resource centers for advice and counseling at a difficult time in their lives. These centers, however, frequently fail to provide medically accurate information. The vast majority of pregnancy centers contacted in this investigation misrepresented the medical consequences of abortion, often grossly exaggerating the risks. This tactic may be effective in frightening pregnant teenagers and women and discouraging abortion. But it denies the teenagers and women vital health information, prevents them from making an informed decision, and is not an accepted public health practice.

Source:
"False and Misleading Health Information Provided by Federally Funded Pregnancy Resource Centers." United States House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform -- Minority Staff, Special Investigations Division. Report prepared for Rep. Henry A. Waxman. July 2006.