Maine DSA Abortion Rights Working Group

Deception: CPCs pose as women’s health clinics or medical facilities but often provide biased pregnancy counseling. Some use debunked studies correlating abortions to cancer and depression. Many push controversial Abortion Reversal Pills that have no medical backing. CPCs often lie to patients once they’re inside. They have been known to ask probing and invasive questions and manipulate so-called abortion-minded individuals about their spirituality and relationships.

False Advertisement: CPCs advertise specifically to young, vulnerable, and lower-income pregnant people experiencing an unplanned pregnancy. They often position themselves near real, medically-licensed health care providers. Many CPCs do not follow HIPAA regulations (because HIPAA only applies to actual medical providers).

Stalling: Some will delay and cancel appointments, hoping to push people past the legal limit for abortion. By scheduling appointments at a location where they cannot receive complete reproductive health care, patients can waste weeks of time, making eventual procedures more expensive or inaccessible due to state law. The farther along a pregnancy goes, the more expensive it is to access abortion care. They seek to whittle away at a person’s options and make accessing an abortion even more difficult.

Intimidation: Some CPCs work with protesters to intimidate people as they enter and leave abortion provider offices. Many fake abortion clinics in Maine share patient data*, and try to intimidate real providers.
* This data sharing also poses as a massive data privacy risk for Mainers. A recent Time magazine article was written on this issue. “Pregnancy centers, many of which are affiliated with national anti-abortion advocacy groups, including Care Net and Heartbeat International, collect personal data from the millions of women they interact with every year in person, by telephone, and through online chats. This data includes sexual and reproductive histories, test results, ultrasound photos, and information shared during consultations, parenting classes, or counseling sessions, which some pregnancy centers require before they provide aid, like diapers. Because most centers are not licensed medical clinics and offer services for free, privacy lawyers tell TIME that they are not legally bound by federal health data privacy laws.” CareNet is currently operating in Brunswick, ME. This data sharing could lead to the criminalization of people seeking abortion in a safe state, like Maine, when they return home.