Crisis pregnancy centers, which have proliferated in recent years, could be a public health danger to pregnant individuals, according to a recent report. A national coalition of reproductive health experts called The Alliance: State Advocates for Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, produced a report in the fall of 2021 detailing crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs), which reproductive health experts often refer to as “fake clinics.”
More than 90 percent of CPCs located in New Mexico are operated by one of three Christian-affiliated organizations: Heartbeat International, Care Net, and Birthright International. CPCs offer some basic, nonmedical services for pregnant people but are intentionally designed to lure unsuspecting pregnant individuals into their offices to prevent abortions, reproductive health experts have said.
According to the report, CPCs use “deceptive, coercive tactics and medical disinformation and misleadingly present themselves as medical facilities.”
Birthright International and Care Net did not respond to repeated requests for comment, but Andrea Trudden, vice president of communications and marketing for Heartbeat International said through an email that “many of the claims made within this report are the exact same talking points that abortion activists have put out there for decades.” She added that Heartbeat International maintains a website designed to specifically “respond to many of the claims” the authors of the report make.
Trudden disagreed with the report’s claims and said through email that pregnancy centers adhere to a national code of ethics called, “Our Commitment of Care and Competence” (CCC), which addresses the vital importance of truthfulness in communications.”
CPCs are located in buildings or mobile units, usually near an abortion clinic in urban areas although they proliferate most often in rural counties where there is a lack of care, health experts have said. They go by a variety of different names that often appear to mimic or resemble the names of abortion care providers, according to the report. But they are not actual health clinics and most lack professional medical providers on their staff.
