Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie Ads and Famanza and welcome to
Speaker 1: Stuff I've Never told your production of I Heart Radio's
Speaker 1: House Stuff Works. In today's episode, we're going to be
Speaker 1: discussing something that I think, um, with all of the
Speaker 1: news coming out, might be on some people's minds, it
Speaker 1: is important to discuss and to discuss it, and it's
Speaker 1: being crisis pregnancy centers. We are joined by Maya. Would
Speaker 1: you like to introduce yourself and tell the listeners a
Speaker 1: little bit about yourself? Nih, Yeah, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for having me on. My name is Maya Kraft. I've
Speaker 1: been a journalist for about fifteen years, but I'm sort
Speaker 1: of new to Atlanta. I'm from California originally, and I
Speaker 1: landed in Atlanta about a year and a half ago
Speaker 1: with kind of which I think was kind of an
Speaker 1: interesting moment in um the South, you know, changing demographics
Speaker 1: of the South and and it's an especially interesting place
Speaker 1: to be at this moment. So um, when my editor
Speaker 1: approached me to write this story about crisis pregnancy centers
Speaker 1: with everything that was going on with the changing reproductive
Speaker 1: rights landscape, I jumped on the opportunity. Yes, and we
Speaker 1: are so glad to have you here because UM, your
Speaker 1: piece and medium was excellently done. UM. And it's called
Speaker 1: Inside the Shadow Clinics for listeners who want to look
Speaker 1: it up. And as you were writing it, it it was
Speaker 1: around the time that Brett Kavanaugh was being confirmed for
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. And as we record this now, several
Speaker 1: states are passing very restrictive abortion laws, ultimately with the
Speaker 1: goal of overturning Roe v. Wade. So we thought it
Speaker 1: would be good time to talk about it. But let's
Speaker 1: start with the basics. What are crisis pregnancy centers, Yeah,
Speaker 1: crisis pregnancy centers. They're also sometimes called pregnancy resource centers.
Speaker 1: These are centers that are run by faith based groups UM,
Speaker 1: that basically exist to talk women out of having an abortion. UM.
Speaker 1: From the outside, they might look like a traditional women's
Speaker 1: health clinic. Some of them even have innocuous names like
Speaker 1: the Women's Clinic, UM. But when you get in there,
Speaker 1: you see a lot of Christian literature and the lobby
Speaker 1: so UM. These centers often masquerade as traditional women's healthcare clinics,
Speaker 1: but when you dig a little deeper, you realize that's
Speaker 1: not what they are. A lot of times they open
Speaker 1: up right across the street from a planned parenthood, although
Speaker 1: in states like Georgia where there are so few abortion clinics, Uh,
Speaker 1: they'll just open up anywhere that you might find women
Speaker 1: who might be considering an abortion, college, campuses, that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. Mm hmm. And I know that. Um a
Speaker 1: while back, John Oliver did a piece of them, and
Speaker 1: they you kind of focus a little bit on the vans,
Speaker 1: like they all move around in vans and park outside.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, there's one that I think parks out front
Speaker 1: of a church in hate Bill. Yeah. I tried to
Speaker 1: go and catch it, but it wasn't it wasn't keeping
Speaker 1: regular hours. They're really regularly available in like a lot
Speaker 1: of suburban areas. I found because I as I worked
Speaker 1: in de facts and as I worked with state government stuff,
Speaker 1: and in the state of Georgia, they kind of leaned
Speaker 1: towards faith based, ah, faith based, evidence based of resources,
Speaker 1: and there are a lot almost per counting, I think,
Speaker 1: and it's really available as an access resource foremost teenage girl. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're definitely much more prevalent in Georgia than a planned
Speaker 1: parenthood for example, or any other kind of traditional women
Speaker 1: selth clinic that provides abortion services. Yeah, and that's a
Speaker 1: good segue into my next question, which is, do you
Speaker 1: have any numbers around this? Yeah, there's actually one of
Speaker 1: the researchers I interviewed from my piece is this woman
Speaker 1: named Andreas Schwartz and Drew ber from the University of Georgia.
Speaker 1: She's put together a map of crisis pregnancy centers across
Speaker 1: the United States in an effort to sort of help
Speaker 1: women identify is this a crisis pregnancy center or is
Speaker 1: this a traditional medical clinic where I'm going to find
Speaker 1: sort of more unbiased medical information. Um. And the numbers
Speaker 1: that she came up with were somewhere around crisis pregnancy
Speaker 1: centers in the United States. And just for some perspective,
Speaker 1: that's about three times the number of abortion clinics in
Speaker 1: the country. So they're outnumbering abortion clinics three to one.
Speaker 1: In places like Georgia, it's more like ten to one. Wow. Um.
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering compared to the states that we talked
Speaker 1: about earlier when we had that episode of about abortion,
Speaker 1: there are several states don't have one abortion clinic or
Speaker 1: and then you compared to how I wonder how many
Speaker 1: they have of those types of crisis centers. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and one thing. Like you said, they do typically look
Speaker 1: like in a lot of cases, like an abortion clinic,
Speaker 1: and you might go in and they might be the
Speaker 1: staff there might be wearing like scrubs or some kind
Speaker 1: of medical attire um. But it is typically run by volunteers. Correct,
Speaker 1: It depends. Some of these places are quite well funded.
Speaker 1: They have budgets over a million dollars a year. Others
Speaker 1: are shoe string operations that are basically the extension of
Speaker 1: the local church. And you might have a couple young people,
Speaker 1: you know, who are basically youth pastor you know, kind
Speaker 1: of like that sort of level um, you know, earning
Speaker 1: a part time salary to staff these centers. So it
Speaker 1: really runs the gamut. And you you spoke to someone
Speaker 1: who worked that one in Georgia, correct, I did. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was hard to get access to these crisis pregnancy centers.
Speaker 1: They're not very media friendly. I wonder why. But there
Speaker 1: was one in Jonesboro, Georgia where I was able to
Speaker 1: spend some time with the two women who staff it
Speaker 1: and learn a little bit about what goes on there,
Speaker 1: what kind of services they offer, what their facilities look like,
Speaker 1: and um, what their point of view is on on
Speaker 1: what they're doing. Um, it was really it was really illuminating.
Speaker 1: But I think the one thing that struck me most
Speaker 1: was how young, how young these people were, and how
Speaker 1: far removed they were from any kind of medical training.
Speaker 1: You know, they were very passionate about their faith, and
Speaker 1: that's definitely the place where they were coming from, right.
Speaker 1: I remember in your PC she wrote about how didn't
Speaker 1: you show one of them like a website? And he said,
Speaker 1: this is a crisis pregnancy center website and he said
Speaker 1: like abortion and there several times and she was like,
Speaker 1: are you sure. Yeah. I thought it was a great
Speaker 1: sort of snapshot of how this industry is changing, right,
Speaker 1: because the crisis pregnancy centers have been around a long time.
Speaker 1: I'm sure everybody has driven down the freeway past one
Speaker 1: of these billboards. It's like Pregnant Scared called this eight
Speaker 1: hundred number. That's been around forever, and it's kind of
Speaker 1: an older model of crisis pregnancy centers. The new thing
Speaker 1: is obscuring the link between the religious organization that usually
Speaker 1: backs these centers and making them look more like medical clinics.
Speaker 1: So the center that I visited was much more this
Speaker 1: old model. Um, it had one of those billboards out
Speaker 1: over the Boulevard and Jones Borough, and that's how they
Speaker 1: got I think most people through the door. So we
Speaker 1: I had her pull up the website for one of
Speaker 1: these kind of more twenty first century, more savvy crisis
Speaker 1: pregnancy centers where you could not tell, like even if
Speaker 1: you were like a media scholar looking at this website,
Speaker 1: you couldn't tell that it's not an abortion clinic. You know,
Speaker 1: it says want an abortion, schedule an appointment today and
Speaker 1: click here. Um, and you know, she and I spent
Speaker 1: some time looking at this website and she didn't believe
Speaker 1: me that it was a crisis pregnancy center. So it's
Speaker 1: really you know, even people within the industry don't entirely
Speaker 1: know the true motivations of these things. So what was
Speaker 1: her response was just like, no, that's not right, Like
Speaker 1: that was just her whole she she personally was, um,
Speaker 1: not cool with being that misleading. But then I asked her,
Speaker 1: I said, you know, if you're so upfront about, you
Speaker 1: know the fact that you're a Christian ministry that's just
Speaker 1: providing alternative information, why don't you say Christian pregnancy counseling
Speaker 1: on your sign? Why do you just say, pregnancy center.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have a great answer for that. Um, but
Speaker 1: this isn't about an individual. This is a big, well
Speaker 1: funded network of centers all across the country that are
Speaker 1: you know, conducting this coordinated campaign to change the conversation
Speaker 1: around abortion right and UM there are three nationwide networks corrects. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are three. UM Care net is the main one,
Speaker 1: NIFLA is another, and Heartbeat International. Um. Yeah, so they
Speaker 1: they run a majority of these centers, or the centers
Speaker 1: are affiliated with those networks. And UM there's also a
Speaker 1: company called Heritage House that provides a lot of the
Speaker 1: pamphlets and materials that you'll find in these centers. UM,
Speaker 1: plastic models of a uterus with showing different stages of
Speaker 1: fetal development. Um. All these pamphlets purportedly physician approved information
Speaker 1: about abortion that turns out to be quite misleading, if
Speaker 1: not outright false. Yeah, and UM that's something that we
Speaker 1: should say if we haven't already. But they're largely unregulated,
Speaker 1: UM facilities, and they promise all sorts of things some
Speaker 1: of them do. Could you go into that for a
Speaker 1: little bit. Yeah. Usually what gets people in the door
Speaker 1: is the free pregnancy test and free ultrasound. A lot
Speaker 1: of times, I think women need proof of pregnancy in
Speaker 1: order to get certain benefits from the state. UM, so
Speaker 1: that's what gets people in the door. But a lot
Speaker 1: of times the pregnancy tests that they're offering are not
Speaker 1: any more sophisticated than what you'd buy at the drug
Speaker 1: store for a couple of bucks. UM, and the ultrasounds
Speaker 1: are most of the time, these are not licensed sonographers
Speaker 1: that can diagnose anything if you have an abnormality in
Speaker 1: your pregnancy, or even tell how far along you are. U.
Speaker 1: It's just sort of to get you to see this
Speaker 1: image and have that emotional moment of potentially hearing a heartbeat. Um.
Speaker 1: It's there's really not a lot of medical merit to
Speaker 1: the ultrasounds that some of these centers might be doing,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't stop them from I think there's sevent
Speaker 1: of crisis pregnancy centers own an ultrasound machine. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I was reading accounts from women who have been and
Speaker 1: said that, Um, there's a lot of stress of like
Speaker 1: oh mommy, you know, like already trying to make that
Speaker 1: make you feel that emotional connection. Definitely, one of the
Speaker 1: first things that happens if you walk into the crisis
Speaker 1: pregnancy center that I was spending time with in Jonesboro.
Speaker 1: Is you get ushered into a counseling room where you
Speaker 1: sit with one of the counselors and talk about your
Speaker 1: concerns about your pregnancy, and they will hand you a
Speaker 1: little baby hat that has been hand knit by one
Speaker 1: of the church volunteers and have you hold it and
Speaker 1: touch it and sort of get a sense for the warm,
Speaker 1: fuzzy relationship that you might be able to have with
Speaker 1: your baby. You know, it's it's definitely an emotional appeal. Wow.
Speaker 1: So let's go further along with that for a second. Um,
Speaker 1: say I'm a woman and I walk into one of
Speaker 1: these CPCs crisis pegnancy center. What can I expect? What
Speaker 1: will happen? Um? Well, it depends. If you're going to
Speaker 1: one of these older school places, you might see over
Speaker 1: religious symbol you might see crosses on the wall and
Speaker 1: biblical music playing in the lobby. You'll definitely see a
Speaker 1: lot of pamphlets in the waiting room telling you about
Speaker 1: questionable things like post abortion trauma syndrome or the link
Speaker 1: between breast cancer and abortion. Um. These very misleading literature.
Speaker 1: If you're in one of these more medicalized places. It
Speaker 1: might be indistinguishable from a medical clinic. You might see
Speaker 1: a sonographer wandering around in scrubs, you know, you might
Speaker 1: not see any religious symbolism at all. Um. So it
Speaker 1: really depends. It's it's not always clear. Yeah, and that
Speaker 1: is probably the biggest criticism of these facilities is that
Speaker 1: they do mislead and they provide false information and then
Speaker 1: try to pass themselves off as a legitimate medical facility
Speaker 1: or a clinic. Um. Do you have any specific examples
Speaker 1: around that. I know you mentioned like kind of not
Speaker 1: well supported medical claim shall we say, but any other
Speaker 1: examples like that. Um? Yeah, Well it was interesting. A
Speaker 1: lot of the people I tried to interview for this
Speaker 1: piece conducted themselves as though they were medical professionals, and
Speaker 1: some of them actually were, and they said they couldn't
Speaker 1: talk to me because of hipp ap privacy. So they're
Speaker 1: kind of entering this really interesting gray area between are
Speaker 1: you a medical clinic subject those kind of regulations or not? Um.
Speaker 1: Misleading medical claims? Yeah, I mean the literature was full
Speaker 1: of um things that that have just been proven to
Speaker 1: e falls. There's pamphlets in the lobby that imply that
Speaker 1: a fetus can feel pain as early as six weeks.
Speaker 1: There's there's no medical evidence to support that. Um, there
Speaker 1: are pamphlets around the link between abortion and breast cancer
Speaker 1: that's kind of harped on a lot in the anti
Speaker 1: abortion community. There's no evidence for that. I mentioned before,
Speaker 1: post abortion trauma syndrome, no evidence for that either, So
Speaker 1: answer your question or um, I I also found examples
Speaker 1: of depression, drug abuse, increased chance of future miscarriage and
Speaker 1: or infertility, And yeah, none of that is supported by research. UM.
Speaker 1: Heartbeat International has these suggested scripts. That's one of the
Speaker 1: things that from there is of suicidal behaviors may be
Speaker 1: attributed to abortion. So things like that, Yeah, definitely. And
Speaker 1: and what's interesting is there's some, um, you know, within
Speaker 1: these circles, there are some people who tour the church
Speaker 1: circuit kind of giving talks about the abortion they almost
Speaker 1: had or the abortion they did have and how guilty
Speaker 1: they felt about it. So, UM, there's there's definitely conversation
Speaker 1: around it within the CPC community that it's not just
Speaker 1: if you've had an abortion, you're a sinner. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of times it's embracing people who have had
Speaker 1: previous abortions and trying to get them UM to to
Speaker 1: make a different decision by telling these stories of how
Speaker 1: rough it's been for these other women and UM, I
Speaker 1: I also read, just to go back to this sort
Speaker 1: of misleading aspect of it is that they might make
Speaker 1: you wait hours for pregnancy test which six minutes UM,
Speaker 1: so that they can they have more time to give
Speaker 1: you this information, and they might ask questions like was
Speaker 1: there a loving Christian boyfriend who would make a great
Speaker 1: dead UM? Did I have a kind do I have
Speaker 1: kind supportive parents would be excited by the idea of
Speaker 1: a grandchild? Yeah, yeah, I noticed. There definitely seemed to
Speaker 1: be a lot of effort to get the men involved
Speaker 1: in these decisions, to get these fathers to come in
Speaker 1: UM and have counseling themselves. There's a big program that
Speaker 1: a lot of these pregnancy centers offer which is called
Speaker 1: Earn While You Learn, where basically, if they've talked to
Speaker 1: you out of having an abortion, you have a baby,
Speaker 1: you can come in UM for an hour on a
Speaker 1: Tuesday night watch these DVDs about parenting, and some of
Speaker 1: them have sort of decent information and some of them
Speaker 1: are really out there. UM, and you watch these DVDs.
Speaker 1: You do these little homework worksheets, and you earn baby
Speaker 1: Bucks and you can earn mommy Bucks and daddy Bucks,
Speaker 1: and you redeem these for onesies and car seats and
Speaker 1: baby wipes and things that you need if you're a
Speaker 1: new mom. Um. So there's definitely an attempt to open
Speaker 1: the the whole community. And like you were saying earlier, um,
Speaker 1: from the outside, they do appear frequently um like they're
Speaker 1: just a medical clinic, and a lot of them will
Speaker 1: purposefully use like the same fonts are as planned, parenthed
Speaker 1: or something, which is I mean, it's hard not to
Speaker 1: see that as misleading. In all, they frequently also used
Speaker 1: choice or choose in their name. Um, So it's easy
Speaker 1: to see how you might be especially if they're next
Speaker 1: to each other. You might just go into the wrong
Speaker 1: one or not the one that you intended to go to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think something that probably happens more frequently is
Speaker 1: not the textbook scenario that you're thinking of, where a
Speaker 1: woman just knows she wants an abortion and wanders into
Speaker 1: this place. It's people who are a lot more conflicted,
Speaker 1: people who don't have a lot of information. Um. And
Speaker 1: you know, people who need baby wipes, and so you know,
Speaker 1: they come to this pregnancy center and and do these
Speaker 1: courses and that's just what they're doing. Um. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: the choice language is used a lot. We're trying to
Speaker 1: get women to make a better choice. Right. We have
Speaker 1: a little bit more for your listeners, but first we're
Speaker 1: gonna pause for a quick bike for word from Responsive
Speaker 1: and we're back. Thank you sponsor. UM. I found a
Speaker 1: quote from Abby Johnson, who is an anti abortion activist.
Speaker 1: We want to appear neutral on the outside. The best
Speaker 1: called the best client you ever get is one that
Speaker 1: thinks they're walking into an abortion clinic. Yea yeah. And
Speaker 1: also a lot of them have been accused of doing
Speaker 1: delaying tactics. UM, so that you miss the legal window
Speaker 1: for an abortion. Are that maybe by the time you
Speaker 1: arrive at the decision, No, I do want an abortion,
Speaker 1: it's more complicated and more expensive. Maybe you can't afford
Speaker 1: it anymore. Um. Some of them might say that you
Speaker 1: can wait and see if you miscarry. There's definitely a
Speaker 1: lot of assists placed on on miscarriage, how how common
Speaker 1: it is, and you know, you read some of these
Speaker 1: pamphlets and you go it's almost like just pray it
Speaker 1: away kind of thing like there's, um, yeah, I found
Speaker 1: I was surprised by that, the the prevalence of the
Speaker 1: information on miscarriage, almost like if if God wants this
Speaker 1: pregnancy to go away, you know, there's this avenue. Were
Speaker 1: you able to ask the individual staff about those types
Speaker 1: of literature why miscarriage is so emphasized. They you know,
Speaker 1: they're young women and they're getting these pamphlets from this
Speaker 1: centralized organization UM that's coordinating all this several levels above
Speaker 1: their head. So when we talked about medical information, you know,
Speaker 1: I would say, do you talk to these women about miscarriage?
Speaker 1: Do you talk to them about maternal mortality? You know,
Speaker 1: black women, the maternal mortality rates are crazy in this
Speaker 1: country and in the South especially, UM. And you know,
Speaker 1: they said, we're not doctors. We don't that's not that's
Speaker 1: not what we do. And that's kind of the rub, right,
Speaker 1: That's the crux of the situation, The manipulative tactics like, well,
Speaker 1: we can't tell you medical stuff, but we can tell
Speaker 1: you morality stuff. Is really easy. This part is easy, right, right.
Speaker 1: Another thing that I imagine a lot of people listening
Speaker 1: won't find surprising, But let's talk about contraception for um,
Speaker 1: did you find that there was any kind of literature
Speaker 1: or something about contraception not in the center that I
Speaker 1: spent time in? Um? And when I asked about that,
Speaker 1: you know, it's commonly said, if you really want to
Speaker 1: reduce abortion, give everybody condoms. You know, when the more
Speaker 1: contraception there is, the more widely available abortions go down. Right,
Speaker 1: And their view was, aren't condoms plentiful everywhere else? Like
Speaker 1: it's like you could go outside and its reigning condoms
Speaker 1: or something. It wasn't their job, that's not what they're doing. Um,
Speaker 1: they can you know, people who want contraception can find
Speaker 1: it everywhere, but not here. Okay, I remember, I can't remember.
Speaker 1: I think her name was Betty, but she she's involved
Speaker 1: in this a lot. And she said that she thought
Speaker 1: condoms don't work like the time or it was some
Speaker 1: number that was very, very large, and the person said,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure they're ninety percent effective, and she was like, no,
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Um. There was an undercover investigation
Speaker 1: into fifty five of Ohio CPCs and it found that
Speaker 1: none offered birth control, and they overwhelmingly pushed abstinence. UM.
Speaker 1: In fact, a popular used CPC manual says, never counsel
Speaker 1: for contraception. UM. So yeah, I mean, I guess that
Speaker 1: does make sense in a weird way that they wouldn't
Speaker 1: if it's not their thing. But it also at the
Speaker 1: same time it seems maybe it should be part of
Speaker 1: their thing. I don't know. There's a lot about the
Speaker 1: reproductive rights conversation that doesn't make a lot, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: kind of like everything else, it's not about preventative, never
Speaker 1: about preventative. Yes, take away from the upside um. But
Speaker 1: also I found that, um, a lot of CPCs are
Speaker 1: encouraged to tell women that birth control causes hair loss,
Speaker 1: breast cancer, weight game headaches, and memory loss, and that
Speaker 1: condoms are quote ineffective at preventing pregnancy. It's almost like
Speaker 1: they're encouraging people to get pregnant and have the baby,
Speaker 1: and have the baby, but not help them after that
Speaker 1: baby is one or two, maybe even then, not even
Speaker 1: before then. The centers I spoke with took a lot
Speaker 1: of pride in in the baby closets, you know, and
Speaker 1: all the things that they give to new mothers, And
Speaker 1: that was evidence that, you know, they do care about
Speaker 1: these fetuses outside of you know, or these babies once
Speaker 1: they're out in the world. Um, but you're right, it doesn't.
Speaker 1: It doesn't extend past a couple of years. And it's
Speaker 1: questionable whether that method is is actually helping women or
Speaker 1: if it's you know, Andrea Schwartzenderber, who I spoke with
Speaker 1: from my piece, as you know, you might some people
Speaker 1: might call that coercive. If you're making people will come
Speaker 1: in and watch biblical DVDs before giving them baby wipes,
Speaker 1: which costs your dollars. You know, it sounds like it
Speaker 1: has to they have to earn their way through something
Speaker 1: that they were being encouraged and or most forcefubly made
Speaker 1: to do. You have to earn to actually provide after
Speaker 1: the fact, right, And I think this brings us to
Speaker 1: a big question is are they illegal? They certainly seem
Speaker 1: to be proliferating at a great pace. But yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's a very interesting time to be watching what's going
Speaker 1: on in the courts. A couple of years ago, California
Speaker 1: issued a ruling that crisis pregnancy centers were required to
Speaker 1: post information in the lobby saying that they don't provide
Speaker 1: abortion services. And and listing the location of a nearby
Speaker 1: UM center where where women could find those kinds of services.
Speaker 1: And um that was struck down by the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: UM Clarence Thomas I think wrote the opinion, and they said, no,
Speaker 1: it's an infringement on freedom of speech to make someone
Speaker 1: do that. So UM. But it'll be interesting to watch
Speaker 1: as they as these centers become more and more medicalized,
Speaker 1: if they're going to be subject to the kind of
Speaker 1: regulation that medical clinics are are subject to. Absolutely, and
Speaker 1: and that decision that you just mentioned that was like
Speaker 1: this is happening. It was last summer, Yeah, it's happening now. Um,
Speaker 1: and so far like up until now, they stop just
Speaker 1: short of being a medical provider on purpose, so they
Speaker 1: aren't subject to regulations, they aren't subject to hippo, which
Speaker 1: is why I found so interesting that you said you
Speaker 1: mentioned that earlier, which means that the info being gathered
Speaker 1: it's not confidential. Um. One South Dakota law requires that
Speaker 1: women go to a CPC before getting an abortion, and
Speaker 1: I believe it's being challenged right now, and that's definitely
Speaker 1: the direction that it's moving. In Georgia too, there's there's
Speaker 1: state money in Georgia that goes toward trying to steer
Speaker 1: women into one of these pregnancy alternative centers, um as
Speaker 1: they're trying to make decisions about what to do with
Speaker 1: their pregnancy. Um. There was I was reading the like
Speaker 1: privacy statement of one of these more misleading medical centers,
Speaker 1: and it was very concerning what they do with the
Speaker 1: information that they gather, you know, in these very vulnerable
Speaker 1: counseling sessions. I'll have to look it up and I
Speaker 1: can send it to you. But there was language like
Speaker 1: staff can use the information that you tell us privately
Speaker 1: and share it with your family, your pastor whoever we
Speaker 1: deem you know, important to know this information. That's frightening.
Speaker 1: And that's already the back and forth with the fact
Speaker 1: that with young girls who are pregnant and allow like
Speaker 1: telling and reporting to the parents, which could be another
Speaker 1: problematic issue about well, how far does hip cover a
Speaker 1: minor and why why why are we not talking about
Speaker 1: that as more of a this is an issue if
Speaker 1: you really truly believe in hip and privacy, they should
Speaker 1: cover all. But at the same time it's not. It's
Speaker 1: kind of a I can choose once again, Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: and going back to the funding. Do you know, like,
Speaker 1: where is the funding coming from? How much funding are
Speaker 1: we talking about? This was the most fascinating part of
Speaker 1: my research. UM. I was expecting a lot of funding
Speaker 1: would be private through churches and you know, individuals who
Speaker 1: really feel passionately about this issue. I was surprised to
Speaker 1: find out how much funding is coming from your paycheck
Speaker 1: and my paycheck. UM. A lot of these crisis pregnancy
Speaker 1: centers get federal funding for teaching abstinence only sex education,
Speaker 1: and we talked a little bit about the state funding.
Speaker 1: In Georgia, a new bill was recently passed. I think
Speaker 1: it was two million dollars is going to crisis pregnancy centers,
Speaker 1: including some of these worst offenders that are most misleading
Speaker 1: on their website. UM. Texas I think a few years
Speaker 1: ago committed five million dollars to crisis pregnancy centers. It's
Speaker 1: since up to that investment to forty million dollars over
Speaker 1: five years. And uh, my favorite, at your local d
Speaker 1: m V you can go in and buy a Choose
Speaker 1: Life license plate and a portion of those proceeds benefit
Speaker 1: crisis pregnancy centers. Wow. Yeah, and I believe it's it's
Speaker 1: thirty two states in Washington, d C. Have those choose
Speaker 1: life last checked. Wow. Okay, well that's not infuriating at all. Um,
Speaker 1: something else that I'm sure won't be infuriating at all.
Speaker 1: Who do you think this impacts the most? So? The
Speaker 1: center I visited was in Jonesboro, UM, which is half
Speaker 1: an hour outside of Atlanta. It's a very it's a
Speaker 1: pretty low income community. I think a third of the
Speaker 1: households are on food stamps. UM. So this is impacting
Speaker 1: people who don't have other options available in their area. UM,
Speaker 1: low income women, Black women, who, as we mentioned, are
Speaker 1: suffering from well already insanely high maternal mortality rates. So
Speaker 1: it's it's it's impacting the most vulnerable. Can you speak
Speaker 1: to the history of these at all? Yeah. I was
Speaker 1: surprised to learn that Chrysis pregnancy centers are even older
Speaker 1: than Roe versus Wade. UM. But they've been around for
Speaker 1: a long time. So. Robert Pearson's considered the founding father
Speaker 1: of crisis pregnancy centers. The first one was opened in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven in Hawaii. Yeah, and um after that,
Speaker 1: two years later he founded the Pearson Foundation, which is
Speaker 1: based in St. Louis, and the goal was to assist
Speaker 1: local groups with setting up cbcs, and they provide things
Speaker 1: like pamphlets, discounted video equipment, and slide shows like the
Speaker 1: twenty seven minute long Caring includes many pick there's a
Speaker 1: bloody fetuses and waist cans, and one of a gurning
Speaker 1: carrying a woman who was apparently dead and is covered
Speaker 1: by a sheet. It ends by comparing abortion to the
Speaker 1: Final Solution, and that's from Crisis Pregnancy Center. Watch. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of that kind of language, um, and a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of people talking about even framing
Speaker 1: it as sort of a racial justice issue what they're doing,
Speaker 1: because if they're trying to lower rates of abortion among
Speaker 1: black women, it's as if, you know, because they're they're
Speaker 1: trying to fight this this genocide of I don't know
Speaker 1: exactly what the reasoning is, but it's definitely framed as
Speaker 1: almost like a human rights issue what they're doing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean they already we were talking about this during
Speaker 1: the abortion I don't know if we actually said it,
Speaker 1: but they're calling it infanticide abortion that it's kind of
Speaker 1: like that's completely misleading in every way, um, in what
Speaker 1: we're talking about and what we're talking about with rights
Speaker 1: in general. Yeah, And as I've mentioned many many times
Speaker 1: on the show, I come from a really small town
Speaker 1: in Georgia, UM and I in eighth grade, I was
Speaker 1: on the debate team, and I was like, me and
Speaker 1: one other kid were liberal and everyone else's conservative, so
Speaker 1: it's always us on the other side. And when abortioned,
Speaker 1: that was the debate the issue. I just remember on
Speaker 1: the other side, they showed slideshows of all these babies
Speaker 1: in like dumpsters and trash cans, and then me and
Speaker 1: my partner had to go up and we were like, well,
Speaker 1: that's terrible, but he's saying this is good. But also
Speaker 1: this Issari really was out right, and again like it's
Speaker 1: all about the misleading like uh, feedomongering that continues to
Speaker 1: happen every day in any type of political agenda, Like
Speaker 1: the best way to get to people who don't truly
Speaker 1: know it's the cost fear. Well, yeah, and like you
Speaker 1: said that, a lot of times it is someone whose
Speaker 1: weaving and isn't sure. And if you come in and
Speaker 1: watch a video like that, I'm sure is very effective.
Speaker 1: And even if just to have to say afterwards like
Speaker 1: me and eighth grade, it didn't change how it felt,
Speaker 1: but I felt worse at voice what I thought after it. Again,
Speaker 1: when people make the term murdering babies your murder, how
Speaker 1: do you argue with that? I mean, we really can't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love, I love killing baby. Let's do this. That's
Speaker 1: gonna be somebody's gonna pull that, I know, but you
Speaker 1: know that that's the whole mentality. And I know with
Speaker 1: a lot of the pregnancy resource centers, actually the ones
Speaker 1: that I've seen because with me working in the state level, UM,
Speaker 1: they do wear scrubs, and I think one or two
Speaker 1: of them are not necessarily nursers but their assistants, so
Speaker 1: they're in the field, but not quite the same guidelines
Speaker 1: of education wise. I saw a lot of UM nursing
Speaker 1: students and scenographers who are getting their practical experience doing
Speaker 1: an internship at a crisis pregnancy center. It's recognized. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's kind of how they get away with being medical.
Speaker 1: I guess um in their conversations, and again, this is
Speaker 1: one of those things that causes a lot of guilt
Speaker 1: and young frightened people who are pregnant, who are in
Speaker 1: a place where they're not sure what to do, so
Speaker 1: they use tactics such as guilt and fear and um
Speaker 1: empathy in every way to try to persuade someone. One
Speaker 1: thing that's that struck me about some of the folks
Speaker 1: I met whose staff these centers is they really are warm, open,
Speaker 1: genuine people who seem to care. These are really like
Speaker 1: motherly figures that you see the people are reaching out
Speaker 1: for because I've seen that as well. They come and
Speaker 1: touch you and hug on you a little bit and
Speaker 1: tell you everything's gonna be okay, and oftentimes we'll be like,
Speaker 1: let me pray with you, even though that might not
Speaker 1: be a thing at the center, but they want to
Speaker 1: make it so personal for you as if they understand
Speaker 1: you and your well being, and to be fair, maybe
Speaker 1: they do because they're that passionate, but of course it
Speaker 1: comes very one sided, um without an understanding of what
Speaker 1: this could be the fallout in the future. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think I read another account from someone who went to
Speaker 1: a crisis pregnancy center. I think she might have been
Speaker 1: an undercover person. But in either case, the person she
Speaker 1: the nurse if it was at nurse, but whoever she
Speaker 1: met at the crisis pregnancy center followed up with her
Speaker 1: for two months, like called her on the phone was,
Speaker 1: you know, just checking out, how are you? How are things?
Speaker 1: I got to know her, so, yeah, they're They're very personable.
Speaker 1: It seems generally um. But to go back to the
Speaker 1: history for a second, um and Pierson, he wrote a
Speaker 1: widely accepted and used pamphlet outlining tactics to use to
Speaker 1: deceive women like He was pretty open about it, and
Speaker 1: then in nine he said, obviously we're fighting Satan. A
Speaker 1: killer who in this case is the girl who wants
Speaker 1: to kill her baby, has no right to information that
Speaker 1: will help her kill her baby. Therefore, when she calls
Speaker 1: and says do you do abortions, we do not tell
Speaker 1: her no, we don't do abortions. So I can imagine
Speaker 1: if you truly believe that in it, it feels like
Speaker 1: you're fighting Satan. It's pretty powerful messaging. I think these
Speaker 1: people are definitely convinced that they're doing the right thing. Oh. Absolutely, Again,
Speaker 1: when we were talking about feminism in itself, one of
Speaker 1: the big reasons people hate that word again, one of
Speaker 1: the big reasons that I had fights with my family
Speaker 1: is because feminism equals abortion. End the story, an abortion
Speaker 1: means murder and you care nothing about the baby. That's
Speaker 1: that's the whole picture for them. There's nothing else to that,
Speaker 1: even though obviously it's a very broad subject. And that's
Speaker 1: exactly what this fearmongering has become. Is they're trying to
Speaker 1: take away life. Yeah, and they've been very effective at it. UM.
Speaker 1: We have a little bit more to discuss, but first
Speaker 1: we're going to pause for one more quick break for
Speaker 1: word from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you, Sposish.
Speaker 1: And one of the ways that they've gotten more effective,
Speaker 1: and you kind of touch on this, is that there's
Speaker 1: this old school and new school. UM. They've modernized, they've
Speaker 1: come into the twentieth century. You wrote about a conference
Speaker 1: that was recently held in Atlanta that was to make
Speaker 1: sure that CPCs are operating the most effectively and these
Speaker 1: are modern times. Can you talk a little bit about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there were so many interesting workshops that there were about
Speaker 1: people who came together staffers from crisis pregnancy centers around
Speaker 1: the country, UM to sort of learn new best practices
Speaker 1: for their industry and how to stay competitive in this
Speaker 1: shifting landscape where you know, there's billboards. That's another era now.
Speaker 1: People who are what they call abortion minded or often
Speaker 1: what's the first thing you do you Google you know,
Speaker 1: abortion clinic in my area, So how do you reach
Speaker 1: those people? It's you know, there was a workshop on
Speaker 1: Google AdWords and how to utilize that to get people
Speaker 1: to your website, how to write a compelling landing page
Speaker 1: for your website, how do use Facebook? Um, you know,
Speaker 1: they're definitely trying to stay on the cutting edge of
Speaker 1: how people are searching for information around abortion and make
Speaker 1: sure they're meeting their target person there right, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: remember that. Um, when that came out that if you
Speaker 1: type in abortion, probably one of the top three results
Speaker 1: is going to be at Crisis Pregnancy Center because they
Speaker 1: did buy those like keywords. Um, so there, they've gotten
Speaker 1: pretty good at that as well. UM, as we as
Speaker 1: we wrap up here, what do you think, why is
Speaker 1: this worth talking about? And what can and should be done?
Speaker 1: If anything? You know, it's interesting. Um, I'm from California,
Speaker 1: and so I think my understanding of the world and
Speaker 1: how things should be is is very colored by the
Speaker 1: you know, being from the coast and you know, relatively
Speaker 1: affluent state where you know you can well, if you
Speaker 1: need an abortion, you just go get one or you know,
Speaker 1: And it wasn't until I moved to the South that
Speaker 1: I realized how different things look in different parts of
Speaker 1: the country. Um. You know the fact that there are
Speaker 1: only nine abortion providers in Georgia and nine d crisis
Speaker 1: pregnancy centers. That's not choice, that's not options. Um. And
Speaker 1: so I don't know the curtailing of access to fair, unbiased,
Speaker 1: truthful information about what options are available to you if
Speaker 1: you find yourself pregnant and you're not sure that that's
Speaker 1: the that's the direction you want to go. Uh, that's paramount.
Speaker 1: And those rights, especially in places like Georgia, are being eroded.
Speaker 1: It's it's less and less easy to find information that
Speaker 1: women need, truly need. Um. So yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: think with this coordinated effort that we're seeing in states
Speaker 1: across the South and the West passing near total abortion bands,
Speaker 1: it might go up to the Supreme Court. Who you know,
Speaker 1: ro versus weight is legitimately in danger um. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is a very real issue that's going to impact millions
Speaker 1: of women. Yeah. And um, like we said in our episode,
Speaker 1: on our recent episode on abortion, it's dangerous. Um. There
Speaker 1: there have been many cases of women's lives being endangered
Speaker 1: or and or um the fetus or child because they
Speaker 1: didn't get accurate information. Are they thought they were going
Speaker 1: to a hospital hospital, but they were going to a
Speaker 1: Catholic hospital. UM. So it just seems transparent, transparency and
Speaker 1: knowing the facts when it comes to this, like you
Speaker 1: have said, very dangerous thing in our country, that is
Speaker 1: having a baby. What would you say to look for
Speaker 1: those who are actually googling and we know there's these tricks,
Speaker 1: and I know we kind of body touched on a
Speaker 1: little bit of the things that might be missing. What
Speaker 1: would you say for those who are researching now um
Speaker 1: and looking things up while they do have access some
Speaker 1: of the key things that should look out for to
Speaker 1: show what is legitimately a choice site or choice center
Speaker 1: as opposed to one of these um Christian basin ers
Speaker 1: as not outright Christian. What would you say? There are
Speaker 1: two links that maybe we could put in the show
Speaker 1: notes or something UM that are super helpful. One of
Speaker 1: them is that map that Andrea Schwarzenderuber put together of
Speaker 1: all the crisis pregnancy centers across the United States. If
Speaker 1: there's if you've identified a clinic and you're not sure,
Speaker 1: cross reference it with that map and you'll be able
Speaker 1: to at least see what you might be able to
Speaker 1: expect when you go to one of these places. UM.
Speaker 1: There's also there's a National Abortion Providers Center that lists
Speaker 1: UM affiliated abortion providers in each state, and so if
Speaker 1: you want to make sure that you're going to a
Speaker 1: place that is not UM, you know, opposed to providing
Speaker 1: information and services around abortion, you can UM look it
Speaker 1: up there. Thank you so much for joining us. Are
Speaker 1: there any projects that you're working on that you want
Speaker 1: to shout out while you're here, Things that you have
Speaker 1: done where people can find you, anything like that. UM,
Speaker 1: people can find me on my website maa craft dot
Speaker 1: com if they want to. I don't know. I write
Speaker 1: on a wide range of subjects, so it's not all.
Speaker 1: It's not all reproductive health may not shout out anything
Speaker 1: but awesome stuff. Nonetheless, we talked about all kinds of
Speaker 1: things on this show, so go check that out if
Speaker 1: you would like listeners, UM, thanks again, and if you
Speaker 1: would like to email as you can. Our email is
Speaker 1: stuff Media mom stuff at i heeart media dot com.
Speaker 1: It's new email, but all new emails sent to the
Speaker 1: old email arrived to the new career. We are professionals. UM.
Speaker 1: You can also find us on Instagram at Stuff I
Speaker 1: Never Told You and on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast.
Speaker 1: Thanks to our super producer Andrew Howard, Play to Be,
Speaker 1: Thanks again to Mycroft, You're amazing, and thanks to you
Speaker 1: for listening. Thank you, Stuff I've Never Told You. The
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radios cost Stuff Works. For more
Speaker 1: podcast from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
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