Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs)
What are crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs)?
Crisis pregnancy centers are facilities that exist to prevent women facing unintended pregnancies from accessing their full range of reproductive health options. Many present themselves as "clinics," despite having no medically licensed staff and offering no health care services. All are primarily concerned with stopping women from seeking abortion.
How do crisis pregnancy centers hurt women?
CPCs not only fail to address the range of choices available to women; they often attempt to dissuade women from seeking abortion by presenting factually inaccurate and misleading information. Women seeking services are often told abortion leads to breast cancer and psychological distress, or "post-abortion syndrome"--despite no medical evidence backing either claim. Women may also be shown intentionally upsetting images or receive false information about their own pregnancies.
CPCs are often religiously-affiliated and make prayer or proselytization a part of service provision. This is despite the fact that centers receiving federal and state funding are prohibited from doing so.
How do crisis pregnancy centers hurt Texas?
During the 2005 Texas legislative session, anti-choice lawmakers passed a state budget rider that shifted $2.5 million per year from family planning services into unlicensed and unregulated CPCs. In 2009 that amount was increased to $4 million per year. This means that every year, $4 million of state money is being taken from clinics that provide preventive health screening and contraceptive services and given to centers that are biased, deceptive and often religiously-affiliated. In a state with the nation’s third-highest teen birth rate, where 50% of all women giving birth are forced to rely on Medicaid to cover the cost, we cannot afford to divert money from vital family planning services—and towards unlicensed, ineffective CPCs.
Check out the resources below to learn more about CPCs in Texas.
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