Health Affairs November 15, 2024
Crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) often bill themselves as legitimate reproductive health care or medical clinics, but they are actually nonmedical centers, operated by anti-abortion advocates, that seek to convince pregnant people to choose parenting or adoption over abortion. To attract clients, CPCs—which are often religiously affiliated—may offer services including pregnancy testing and ultrasounds as well as social supports such as diapers. As of 2019, there were approximately 2,600 CPCs in contrast to 780 abortion clinics. While the demographics of their patients is unclear, scholars have estimated that in post-Roe America, 57 percent of the population lives closer to a CPC than an abortion clinic, with 99 percent of the population in 13 states living closer to a CPC than an...