Fighting Fake Clinics
Sometimes referred to as Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs), fake clinics push an anti-abortion agenda through misinformation and outright lying to patients about their options. CPCs falsely claim that abortion increases the risk of cancer, will provide free ultrasounds to claim that the pregnancy is farther along than it is, and have been known to trap patients inside their facilities in an effort to convince them against choosing an abortion.
They aren’t actual health care facilities! They are not bound by privacy laws or government regulations and can share patients’ medical/personal information at will. They don’t provide any useful medical services and will pretend to perform medical services without trained, certified technicians. From the 1990s until 2023, they received MILLIONS each year in PA state funding, totaling mote than $134m. Gov. Shapiro ended this tax-payer funding in 2024!
In most states, CPCs currently outnumber real abortion-providing clinics--in PA the ratio is about 9 CPCs for every abortion clinic. This is because they also operate as religious nonprofits and enjoy bountiful donations from anti-choice churches and organizations. Often, they are right next to a real clinic hoping to confuse patients from out of town.
As such, the Abortion Rights Coalition has been building to expose and resist the presence of these parasites in our neighborhoods by:
compiling information about local CPCs and other fake pregnancy care centers, like who runs and funds them.
exposing them through public campaigns and flyering or protesting outside their building.
flagging them in online searches to make sure they are tagged as not providing abortions.
researching legislation that will help shut them down, or at least make it more difficult for them to pass as real clinics.