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SMNTY Classics: Crisis Pregnancy Centers · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stuff
0:07
Speaker 1: I've Never told your production of iHeart Radio. So for
0:19
Speaker 1: today's classic, we wanted to bring back an interview that
0:22
Speaker 1: we did with my across a while back back in
0:25
Speaker 1: the studio. Man such long ago, such long ago, as
0:32
Speaker 1: they say, a whole time ago. Look I'm having a moment, yes,
0:37
Speaker 1: but as an interview about crisis pregnancy centers, and we
0:40
Speaker 1: wanted to bring this one back because we talked about
0:44
Speaker 1: it quite a bit in our recent episode. It also
0:49
Speaker 1: an interview that we did with Liz Winstead. Yes, and
0:53
Speaker 1: it has been it's been in the news a lot lately,
0:56
Speaker 1: especially as we've seen kind of a wave of anti
1:00
Speaker 1: abortion laws and then a lot of times these places,
1:04
Speaker 1: these CPCs are set up near abortion clinics, so they
1:09
Speaker 1: look the same and kind of easily confused between the two.
1:13
Speaker 1: So we thought we would bring back this classic episode.
1:16
Speaker 1: Please enjoy. Hey, this is Annie. Hey, this is Samantha,
1:24
Speaker 1: and welcome to stuff I've Never Told you, a production
1:26
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. In Phay's episode,
1:39
Speaker 1: we're going to be discussing something that I think, um
1:42
Speaker 1: with all of the news coming out, might be on
1:44
Speaker 1: some people's minds is important to discuss and to discuss it,
1:48
Speaker 1: and it being crisis pregnancy centers. We are joined by Maya.
1:53
Speaker 1: Would you like to introduce yourself and tell the listeners
1:56
Speaker 1: a little bit about yourself? Nah? Yeah, thank you so
1:58
Speaker 1: much for having me on. My name, miss Maya Craft.
2:01
Speaker 1: I've been a journalist for about fifteen years, but I'm
2:03
Speaker 1: sort of new to Atlanta. I'm from California originally, and
2:07
Speaker 1: I landed in Atlanta about a year and a half
2:10
Speaker 1: ago with kind of which I think was kind of
2:12
Speaker 1: an interesting moment in Um. This the South, you know,
2:18
Speaker 1: changing demographics of the South and and it's an especially
2:21
Speaker 1: interesting place to be at this moment. So UM, when
2:26
Speaker 1: my editor approached me to write this story about crisis
2:28
Speaker 1: pregnancy centers with everything that was going on with the
2:31
Speaker 1: changing reproductive rights landscape, I jumped on the opportunity. Yes,
2:35
Speaker 1: and we are so glad to have you here because um,
2:39
Speaker 1: your piece and medium was excellently done. UM and it's
2:42
Speaker 1: called Inside the Shadow clinics for listeners who want to
2:45
Speaker 1: look it up. And as you're writing it, it was
2:48
Speaker 1: around the time that Brett Kavanaugh was being confirmed for
2:51
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, and as we record this now, several
2:55
Speaker 1: states are passing very restrictive abortion laws, ultimately with the
2:59
Speaker 1: goal of overturning Roe v. Wade. So we thought it
3:03
Speaker 1: would be good time to talk about it. But let's
3:05
Speaker 1: start with the basics. What are crisis pregnancy centers. Yeah,
3:09
Speaker 1: crisis pregnancy centers. They're also sometimes called pregnancy resource centers.
3:14
Speaker 1: These are centers that are run by faith based groups
3:18
Speaker 1: UM that basically exists to talk women out of having
3:21
Speaker 1: an abortion. UM. From the outside, they might look like
3:26
Speaker 1: a traditional women's health clinic. Some of them even have
3:29
Speaker 1: innocuous names like the Women's Clinic UM. But when you
3:32
Speaker 1: get in there you see a lot of Christian literature
3:36
Speaker 1: and the lobby so um. These centers often masquerade as
3:42
Speaker 1: traditional women's healthcare clinics, but when you dig a little deeper,
3:45
Speaker 1: you realize that's not what they are. A lot of
3:47
Speaker 1: times they open up right across the street from a
3:49
Speaker 1: planned parenthood although in states like Georgia where there are
3:53
Speaker 1: so few abortion clinics, uh, they'll just open up anywhere
3:57
Speaker 1: that you might find women who might be considering an abortion.
4:00
Speaker 1: College campuses, that kind of thing, mm hmm. And I
4:04
Speaker 1: know that Um. A while back, John Oliver did a
4:06
Speaker 1: piece of them and they he kind of focused a
4:09
Speaker 1: little bit on the vans, like they all move around
4:11
Speaker 1: in vans and park outside. Oh yeah, there's one that
4:15
Speaker 1: I think parks out front of a church in Hateville. Yeah.
4:19
Speaker 1: I tried to go and catch it, but it wasn't
4:21
Speaker 1: it wasn't keeping regular hours. They're really regularly available in
4:25
Speaker 1: like a lot of suburban areas. I found because I
4:28
Speaker 1: as I worked in defacts and as I worked with
4:30
Speaker 1: state government stuff, and in the state of Georgia, they
4:33
Speaker 1: kind of leaned towards faith based, ah, faith based, evidence
4:37
Speaker 1: based of resources, and there are a lot almost per
4:42
Speaker 1: county I think, and it's really available as an access
4:46
Speaker 1: resource foremost teenage girl. Yeah, they're definitely much more prevalent
4:51
Speaker 1: in Georgia than a Planned parenthood for example, or any
4:54
Speaker 1: other kind of traditional women's sealth clinic that provides abortion services. Yeah,
4:58
Speaker 1: and that's a good segue into my next question, which
5:01
Speaker 1: is do you have any numbers around this? Yeah, there's
5:04
Speaker 1: actually one of the researchers I interviewed from my piece
5:06
Speaker 1: is this woman named Andreas Schwartz and Drew ber from
5:08
Speaker 1: the University of Georgia. She's put together a map of
5:11
Speaker 1: crisis pregnancy centers across the United States in an effort
5:14
Speaker 1: to sort of help women identify is this a crisis
5:18
Speaker 1: pregnancy center or is this a traditional medical clinic where
5:21
Speaker 1: I'm going to find sort of more unbiased medical information. Um.
5:25
Speaker 1: And the numbers that she came up with were somewhere
5:27
Speaker 1: around crisis pregnancy centers in the United States. And just
5:32
Speaker 1: for some perspective, that's about three times the number of
5:35
Speaker 1: abortion clinics in the country. So they're outnumbering abortion clinics
5:39
Speaker 1: three to one. In places like Georgia, it's more like
5:42
Speaker 1: ten to one. Wow. Um. And I'm wondering compared to
5:47
Speaker 1: the states that we talked about earlier when we had
5:49
Speaker 1: our episode of about abortion, there are several states don't
5:51
Speaker 1: have one abortion clinic or and then you compared to
5:54
Speaker 1: how I wonder how many they have of those types
5:56
Speaker 1: of crisis centers. Yeah. Uh. And one thing, like you said,
6:02
Speaker 1: they do typically look like in a lot of cases,
6:08
Speaker 1: like an abortion clinic, and you might go in and
6:12
Speaker 1: they might be the staff there might be wearing like
6:15
Speaker 1: scobs or some kind of medical attire. Um. But it
6:19
Speaker 1: is typically run by volunteers. Correct, it depends. Some of
6:24
Speaker 1: these places are quite well funded, they have budgets over
6:27
Speaker 1: a million dollars a year. Others are shoe string operations
6:31
Speaker 1: that are basically the extension of the local church. And
6:33
Speaker 1: you might have a couple young people, you know, who
6:37
Speaker 1: are basically youth pastor you know, kind of like that
6:39
Speaker 1: sort of level, um, you know, earning a part time
6:42
Speaker 1: salary to staff these centers. So it really runs the gamut.
6:46
Speaker 1: And you you spoke to someone who worked that one
6:49
Speaker 1: in Georgia, Correct, it did. Yeah, it was hard to
6:52
Speaker 1: get access to these crisis pregnancy centers. They're not very
6:56
Speaker 1: media friendly. I wonder why that there was one in Jonesboro,
7:01
Speaker 1: Georgia where I was able to spend some time with
7:04
Speaker 1: the two women who staff it and learn a little
7:07
Speaker 1: bit about what goes on there, what kind of services
7:10
Speaker 1: they offer, what their facilities look like, and um, what
7:13
Speaker 1: their point of view is on on what they're doing. Um.
7:16
Speaker 1: It was really it was really illuminating. But I think
7:18
Speaker 1: the one thing that struck me most was how young,
7:22
Speaker 1: how young these people were, and how far removed they
7:26
Speaker 1: were from any kind of medical training. You know, they
7:30
Speaker 1: were very passionate about their faith, and that's definitely the
7:33
Speaker 1: place where they were coming from, right. I remember in
7:37
Speaker 1: your PC she wrote about how didn't you show one
7:40
Speaker 1: of them like a website? And he said, this is
7:42
Speaker 1: a crisis pregnancy center website and he said like abortion
7:45
Speaker 1: and there several times and she was like, are you sure? Yeah.
7:48
Speaker 1: I thought it was a great sort of snapshot of
7:50
Speaker 1: how this industry is changing, right, because the crisis pregnancy
7:53
Speaker 1: centers have been around a long time. I'm sure everybody
7:56
Speaker 1: has driven down the freeway past one of these billboards.
7:59
Speaker 1: It's like Pregnant Scared called this eight hundred number. That's
8:02
Speaker 1: been around forever, and it's kind of an older model
8:05
Speaker 1: of crisis pregnancy centers. The new thing is obscuring the
8:11
Speaker 1: link between the religious organization that usually backs these centers
8:14
Speaker 1: and making them look more like medical clinics. So the
8:18
Speaker 1: center that I visited was much more this old model.
8:20
Speaker 1: Um it had one of those billboards out over the
8:24
Speaker 1: boulevard and Jones Borough and that's how they got I
8:27
Speaker 1: think most people through the door. So we I had
8:30
Speaker 1: her pull up the website for one of these kind
8:32
Speaker 1: of more twenty feet century, more savvy crisis pregnancy centers
8:35
Speaker 1: where you could not tell, like, even if you were
8:39
Speaker 1: like a media scholar looking at this website, you couldn't
8:42
Speaker 1: tell that it's not an abortion clinic. You know, it
8:43
Speaker 1: says want an abortion, schedule an appointment today and click here. Um.
8:49
Speaker 1: And you know, she and I spent some time looking
8:51
Speaker 1: at this website and she didn't believe me that it
8:53
Speaker 1: was a crisis pregnancy center. So it's really you know,
8:56
Speaker 1: even people within the industry don't entirely know the true
8:59
Speaker 1: motivation of these things. So what was her response was
9:02
Speaker 1: just like, no, that's not right, Like that was just
9:04
Speaker 1: her whole she she personally was, um, not cool with
9:09
Speaker 1: being that misleading. But then I asked her, I said,
9:12
Speaker 1: you know, if you're so upfront about, you know, the
9:15
Speaker 1: fact that you're a Christian ministry that's just providing alternative information,
9:20
Speaker 1: why don't you say Christian pregnancy counseling on your sign?
9:23
Speaker 1: Why do you just say pregnancy center. She didn't have
9:26
Speaker 1: a great answer for that. Um, but this isn't about
9:29
Speaker 1: an individual. This is a big, well funded network of
9:33
Speaker 1: centers all across the country that are you know, conducting
9:37
Speaker 1: this coordinated campaign to change the conversation around abortion. Right,
9:42
Speaker 1: and um, there are three nationwide networks. Correct, Yeah, there
9:47
Speaker 1: are three. UM Care net is the main one, NIFLA
9:52
Speaker 1: is another, and Heartbeat International. Um. Yeah, so they they
9:58
Speaker 1: run a majority of these centers, or the centers are
10:03
Speaker 1: affiliated with those networks. And there's also a company called
10:06
Speaker 1: Heritage House that provides a lot of the pamphlets and
10:09
Speaker 1: materials that you'll find in these centers. UM plastic models
10:13
Speaker 1: of a uterus with showing different stages of fetal development. Um.
10:18
Speaker 1: All these pamphlets purportedly physician approved information about abortion that
10:25
Speaker 1: turns out to be quite misleading, if not outright false. Yeah,
10:29
Speaker 1: and um that's something that we should say if we
10:32
Speaker 1: haven't already. But they're largely unregulated UM facilities, and they
10:38
Speaker 1: promise all sorts of things some of them do. Could
10:42
Speaker 1: you go into that a little bit. Yeah. Usually what
10:45
Speaker 1: gets people in the door is the free pregnancy test
10:47
Speaker 1: and free ultrasound. A lot of times, I think women
10:50
Speaker 1: need proof of pregnancy in order to get certain benefits
10:53
Speaker 1: from the state. UM. So that's what gets people in
10:56
Speaker 1: the door. But a lot of times the pregnancy tests
10:59
Speaker 1: that they're offering are not any more sophisticated than what
11:02
Speaker 1: you'd buy at the drug store for a couple of bucks. Um,
11:05
Speaker 1: and the ultrasounds are most of the time, these are
11:09
Speaker 1: not licensed sonographers that can diagnose anything if you have
11:13
Speaker 1: an abnormality in your pregnancy, or even tell how far
11:16
Speaker 1: along you are. Um, it's just sort of to get
11:19
Speaker 1: you to see this image and have that emotional moment
11:22
Speaker 1: of potentially hearing a heartbeat. Um. It's there's really not
11:26
Speaker 1: a lot of medical merit to the ultrasounds that some
11:30
Speaker 1: of these centers might be doing, but that doesn't stop
11:32
Speaker 1: them from I think there's sevent of crisis pregnancy centers
11:35
Speaker 1: own an ultrasound machine. Yeah, and I was reading accounts
11:39
Speaker 1: from women who have been and said that, um, there's
11:43
Speaker 1: a lot of stress of like oh mommy, you know,
11:46
Speaker 1: like already trying to make that make you feel that
11:49
Speaker 1: emotional connection. Definitely. One of the first things that happens
11:52
Speaker 1: if you walk into the crisis pregnancy center that I
11:54
Speaker 1: was spending time with in Jonesboro is you get ushered
11:58
Speaker 1: into a counseling room where you it with one of
12:00
Speaker 1: the counselors and talk about your concerns about your pregnancy,
12:03
Speaker 1: and they will hand you a little baby hat that
12:06
Speaker 1: has been hand knit by one of the church volunteers
12:09
Speaker 1: and have you hold it and touch it and sort
12:11
Speaker 1: of get a sense for the warm, fuzzy relationship that
12:15
Speaker 1: you might be able to have with your baby. You know,
12:18
Speaker 1: it's it's definitely an emotional appeal. Wow. So let's go
12:22
Speaker 1: further along with that for a second. Um, say I'm
12:24
Speaker 1: a woman and I walk into one of these CPCSE
12:27
Speaker 1: Crisis Pegnancy center. What can I expect? What will happen? Um? Well,
12:33
Speaker 1: it depends. If you're going to one of these older
12:34
Speaker 1: school places, you might see over religious symbol you might
12:39
Speaker 1: see crosses on the wall and biblical music playing in
12:42
Speaker 1: the lobby. You'll definitely see a lot of pamphlets in
12:46
Speaker 1: the waiting room telling you about questionable things like post
12:51
Speaker 1: abortion trauma syndrome or the link between breast cancer and abortion. Um,
12:57
Speaker 1: these very misleading literature. If in one of these more
13:00
Speaker 1: medicalized places, it might be indistinguishable from a medical clinic,
13:05
Speaker 1: you might see a sonographer wandering around in scrubs. You know,
13:09
Speaker 1: you might not see any religious symbolism at all. Um,
13:12
Speaker 1: So it really depends. It's it's not always clear. Yeah,
13:17
Speaker 1: and that is probably the biggest criticism of these facilities
13:23
Speaker 1: is that they do mislead and they provide false information
13:28
Speaker 1: and then try to pass themselves off as a legitimate
13:32
Speaker 1: medical facility or a clinic. Um. Do you have any
13:36
Speaker 1: specific examples around that. I know you mentioned like kind
13:38
Speaker 1: of not well supported medical claim shall we say, but
13:42
Speaker 1: any other examples like that? Um? Yeah, Well it was interesting.
13:46
Speaker 1: A lot of the people I tried to interview for
13:49
Speaker 1: this piece conducted themselves as though they were medical professionals,
13:53
Speaker 1: and some of them actually were, and they said they
13:56
Speaker 1: couldn't talk to me because of hipp a privacy. Interesting,
14:01
Speaker 1: so they're kind of entering this really interesting gray area
14:04
Speaker 1: between are you a medical clinic subject to those kind
14:07
Speaker 1: of regulations? Are not? Um? Misleading medical claims? Yeah? I
14:11
Speaker 1: mean the literature was full of um things that that
14:16
Speaker 1: have just been proven to be false. There was pamphlets
14:19
Speaker 1: in the lobby that imply that a fetus can feel
14:22
Speaker 1: pain as early as six weeks. There's there's no medical
14:26
Speaker 1: evidence to support that. Um. There are pamphlets around the
14:30
Speaker 1: link between abortion and breast cancer that's kind of harped
14:33
Speaker 1: on a lot in the anti abortion community. There's no
14:36
Speaker 1: evidence for that. I mentioned before post abortion trauma syndrome.
14:41
Speaker 1: No evidence for that either, so answer your question or
14:44
Speaker 1: an um I I also found examples of depression, drug abuse,
14:51
Speaker 1: increased chance of future miscarriage and or infertility, And yeah,
14:56
Speaker 1: none of that is supported by research. Um Heartbeat International
15:02
Speaker 1: has these suggested scripts. That's one of the things that
15:05
Speaker 1: from there is of suicidal behaviors may be attributed to abortion.
15:11
Speaker 1: So things like that, Yeah, definitely, And and what's interesting
15:15
Speaker 1: is there's some um, you know, within these circles, there
15:19
Speaker 1: are some people who tour the church circuit kind of
15:22
Speaker 1: giving talks about the abortion they almost had or the
15:27
Speaker 1: abortion they did have and how guilty they felt about it.
15:29
Speaker 1: So um, there's there's definitely conversation around it within the
15:33
Speaker 1: CPC community that it's not just if you've had an abortion,
15:37
Speaker 1: you're a sinner. You know, a lot of times it's
15:39
Speaker 1: embracing people who have had previous abortions and trying to
15:42
Speaker 1: get them, um to to make a different decision by
15:45
Speaker 1: telling these stories of how rough it's been for these
15:47
Speaker 1: other women. And um I also read just to go
15:53
Speaker 1: back to this sort of misleading aspect of it is
15:57
Speaker 1: that they might make you wait hours for pregnancy test
15:59
Speaker 1: which six minutes UM, so that they can they have
16:03
Speaker 1: more time to give you this information, and they might
16:05
Speaker 1: ask questions like, was there a loving Christian boyfriend who
16:08
Speaker 1: would make a great dad? Um? Did I have a
16:11
Speaker 1: kind do I have kind? Supportive parents would be excited
16:14
Speaker 1: by the idea of a grandchild? Yeah? Yeah, I noticed.
16:19
Speaker 1: There definitely seemed to be a lot of effort to
16:21
Speaker 1: get the men involved in these decisions, to get these
16:26
Speaker 1: fathers to come in UM and have counseling themselves. There's
16:31
Speaker 1: a big program that a lot of these pregnancy centers
16:33
Speaker 1: offer which is called Earn While You Learn, where basically,
16:37
Speaker 1: if they've talked to you out of having an abortion,
16:39
Speaker 1: you have a baby, you can come in UM for
16:42
Speaker 1: an hour on a Tuesday night watch these DVDs about
16:46
Speaker 1: parenting and some of them have sort of decent information
16:50
Speaker 1: and some of them are really out there. UM, and
16:53
Speaker 1: you watch these DVDs, you do these little homework worksheets,
16:56
Speaker 1: and you earn baby bucks and you can earn mommy
16:58
Speaker 1: Bucks and Daddy buck and you redeem these for onesies
17:03
Speaker 1: and car seats and baby wipes and things that you
17:06
Speaker 1: need if you're a new mom. Um, so there's definitely
17:09
Speaker 1: an attempt to open the the whole community, right And
17:15
Speaker 1: like you were saying earlier, Um, from the outside, they
17:18
Speaker 1: do appear frequently, um like they're just a medical clinic,
17:23
Speaker 1: and a lot of them will purposefully use like the
17:24
Speaker 1: same fonts are last planned, parenthoed or something, which is
17:30
Speaker 1: I mean, it's hard not to see that as misleading.
17:33
Speaker 1: In all they frequently also used choice or choose in
17:37
Speaker 1: their name. Um, So it's easy to see how you
17:41
Speaker 1: might be especially if they're next to each other. You
17:45
Speaker 1: might just go into the wrong one or not the
17:49
Speaker 1: one that you intended to go to. Yeah, And I
17:51
Speaker 1: think something that probably happens more frequently is not the
17:55
Speaker 1: textbook scenario that you're thinking of where a woman just
17:58
Speaker 1: knows she wants an abortion and wanders in this place.
18:01
Speaker 1: It's people who are a lot more conflicted, people who
18:03
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of information. Um. And you know,
18:07
Speaker 1: people who need baby wipes and so you know, they
18:11
Speaker 1: come to this pregnancy center and and do these courses
18:14
Speaker 1: and that's just what they're doing. Um. Yeah, it's the
18:19
Speaker 1: choice language is used a lot. We're trying to get
18:22
Speaker 1: women to make a better choice. We have a little
18:26
Speaker 1: bit more for your listeners, but first we're gonna pause
18:27
Speaker 1: for a quick bike for word from responses and we're back.
18:43
Speaker 1: Thank you sponsor. UM. I found a quote from Abby Johnson,
18:47
Speaker 1: who is an anti abortion activist. We want to appear
18:50
Speaker 1: neutral on the outside. The best called the best clients
18:53
Speaker 1: you ever get is one that thinks they're walking into
18:55
Speaker 1: an abortion clinic. Yeah. Yeah. And also a lot of
18:59
Speaker 1: them have been used of doing delaying tactics. UM, so
19:03
Speaker 1: that you miss the legal window for an abortion. Are
19:06
Speaker 1: that maybe by the time you arrive at the decision, No,
19:08
Speaker 1: I do want an abortion, it's more complicated and more expensive.
19:11
Speaker 1: Maybe you can't afford it anymore. Um. Some of them
19:13
Speaker 1: might say that you can wait and see if you miscarry.
19:16
Speaker 1: There's definitely a lot of emphasis placed on on miscarriage,
19:19
Speaker 1: how how common it is, and you know, you read
19:23
Speaker 1: some of these pamphlets and you go it's almost like
19:26
Speaker 1: just pray it away kind of thing, like there's um yeah,
19:32
Speaker 1: I found I was surprised by that that the prevalence
19:36
Speaker 1: of the information on miscarriage almost like if if God
19:41
Speaker 1: wants this pregnancy to go away, you know, there's this avenue.
19:45
Speaker 1: Were you able to ask the individual staff about those
19:47
Speaker 1: types of literature why miscarriage is so emphasized. They you know,
19:52
Speaker 1: they are young women and they're getting these pamphlets from
19:55
Speaker 1: this centralized organization UM that's coordinating all this several levels
20:01
Speaker 1: above their head. So when we talked about medical information,
20:05
Speaker 1: you know, I would say, do you talk to these
20:06
Speaker 1: women about miscarriage? Did you talk to them about maternal mortality?
20:10
Speaker 1: You know, black women, maternal mortality rates are crazy in
20:14
Speaker 1: this country and in the South especially UM. And you know,
20:18
Speaker 1: they said, we're not talctors. We don't. That's not that's
20:23
Speaker 1: not what we do. And that's kind of the rub, right,
20:27
Speaker 1: that's the crux of the situation, the manipulative tactics like, well,
20:30
Speaker 1: we can't tell you medical stuff, but we can tell
20:33
Speaker 1: you morality stuff. Is really easy. This part is easy,
20:36
Speaker 1: right right. Another thing that I imagine a lot of
20:40
Speaker 1: people listening won't find surprising, But let's talk about contraception
20:44
Speaker 1: for UM. Did you find that there was any kind
20:49
Speaker 1: of literature or something about contraception not in the center
20:53
Speaker 1: that I spent time in UM. And when I asked
20:57
Speaker 1: about that, you know, it's commonly said, if you really
20:59
Speaker 1: want to duce abortion. Give everybody condoms. You know, when
21:02
Speaker 1: the more contraception there is, the more widely available, abortions
21:05
Speaker 1: go down, right, And their view was, aren't condoms plentiful
21:11
Speaker 1: everywhere else? Like it's like you could go outside and
21:13
Speaker 1: its reigning condoms or something. It wasn't their job, that's
21:16
Speaker 1: not what they're doing. Um. And they can, you know,
21:18
Speaker 1: people who want contraception can find it everywhere, but not here. Okay,
21:23
Speaker 1: I remember, I can't remember. I think her name was Betty,
21:25
Speaker 1: but she she's involved in this a lot. And she
21:28
Speaker 1: said that she thought condoms don't work like the time
21:31
Speaker 1: or it was some number that was very, very large,
21:35
Speaker 1: and the person said, I'm pretty sure they're ninety percent effective,
21:38
Speaker 1: and she was like, no, I don't think so. Um.
21:42
Speaker 1: There was an undercover investigation into fifty five of Ohio
21:45
Speaker 1: CPCs and it found that none offered birth control and
21:49
Speaker 1: they overwhelmingly pushed abstinence. Um. In fact, a popular used
21:54
Speaker 1: CPC manual says, never counsel for contraception. UM. So yeah,
22:00
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it does make sense in a
22:02
Speaker 1: weird way that they wouldn't if it's not their thing.
22:07
Speaker 1: But also at the same time, it seems maybe it
22:11
Speaker 1: should be part of their thing. I don't know. It's
22:14
Speaker 1: a lot about the reproductive rights conversation that doesn't make
22:17
Speaker 1: a lot of sense. I mean, it's kind of like
22:19
Speaker 1: everything else. It's not about preventative, never about preventative. Yes,
22:25
Speaker 1: take away from the episode, but also I found that, um,
22:28
Speaker 1: a lot of CPCs are encouraged to tell women that
22:30
Speaker 1: birth control causes hair loss, breast cancer, weight game headaches,
22:36
Speaker 1: and memory loss, and that condoms are quote ineffective at
22:40
Speaker 1: preventing pregnancy. It's almost like they're encouraging people to get
22:44
Speaker 1: pregnant and have the baby, and have the baby, but
22:47
Speaker 1: not help them after that baby is one or two,
22:51
Speaker 1: maybe even then, not even before then. The centers I
22:55
Speaker 1: spoke with took a lot of pride in in the
22:58
Speaker 1: baby closets, you know, and all the things they give
23:00
Speaker 1: to new mothers, and that was evidence that you know,
23:02
Speaker 1: they do care about these fetuses outside of you know,
23:04
Speaker 1: or these babies once they're out in the world. Um,
23:07
Speaker 1: but you're right, it doesn't it doesn't extend past a
23:09
Speaker 1: couple of years. And it's questionable whether that method is
23:13
Speaker 1: is actually helping women or if it's you know, Andrea Schwartzendreber,
23:16
Speaker 1: who I spoke with from my piece, says, you know,
23:18
Speaker 1: you might some people might call that coercive if you're
23:21
Speaker 1: making people will come in and watch biblical DVDs before
23:24
Speaker 1: giving them baby wipes which cost you dollars. You know,
23:26
Speaker 1: it sounds like it has to they have to earn
23:28
Speaker 1: their way through something that they were being encouraged and
23:31
Speaker 1: or most forcefubly made to do. You have to earn
23:34
Speaker 1: to actually provide after the fact, right, And I think
23:39
Speaker 1: this brings us to you A big question is are
23:42
Speaker 1: they illegal? They certainly seem to be or proliferating at
23:49
Speaker 1: a great pace. But yeah, it's it's a very interesting
23:51
Speaker 1: time to be watching what's going on in the courts.
23:54
Speaker 1: A couple of years ago, California issued a ruling that
23:57
Speaker 1: crisis pregnancy centers were required to post information in the
24:01
Speaker 1: lobby saying that they don't provide abortion services and and
24:05
Speaker 1: listing the location of a nearby UM center where where
24:09
Speaker 1: women could find those kinds of services. And um that
24:12
Speaker 1: was struck down by the Supreme Court. Um Clarence Thomas
24:16
Speaker 1: I think wrote the opinion, and they said, no, it's
24:18
Speaker 1: an infringement on freedom of speech to make someone do that.
24:21
Speaker 1: So um, but it'll be interesting to watch as they
24:25
Speaker 1: as these centers become more and more medicalized, if they're
24:27
Speaker 1: going to be subject to the kind of regulation that
24:31
Speaker 1: medical clinics are are subject to. Absolutely, And and that
24:34
Speaker 1: decision that you just mentioned that was like this is happening.
24:38
Speaker 1: It was last summer, Yeah, it's happening now. Um And
24:44
Speaker 1: so far like up until now, they stop just short
24:48
Speaker 1: of being a medical provider on purpose, so they aren't
24:51
Speaker 1: subject to regulations, they aren't subject to hippo, which is
24:54
Speaker 1: why I found so interesting you said you mentioned that earlier,
24:58
Speaker 1: which means that the INFA and gathered it's not confidential. Um.
25:02
Speaker 1: One that Dakota law requires that women go to a
25:05
Speaker 1: CPC before getting an abortion, and I believe it's being
25:09
Speaker 1: challenged right now. And that's definitely the direction that it's
25:13
Speaker 1: moving in Georgia too. There's there's state money in Georgia
25:17
Speaker 1: that goes toward trying to steer women into one of
25:20
Speaker 1: these pregnancy alternative centers um as they're trying to make
25:25
Speaker 1: decisions about what to do with their pregnancy. Um. There
25:29
Speaker 1: was I was reading the like privacy statement of one
25:33
Speaker 1: of these more misleading medical centers, and it was very
25:38
Speaker 1: concerning what they do with the information that they gather,
25:42
Speaker 1: you know, in these very vulnerable counseling sessions. I'll have
25:45
Speaker 1: to look it up and I can send it to you.
25:46
Speaker 1: But there was a language like staff can use the
25:50
Speaker 1: information that you tell us privately and share it with
25:54
Speaker 1: your family, your pastor whoever we deem you know, important
25:58
Speaker 1: to know this information. That's right thing. And that's already
26:03
Speaker 1: the back and forth with the fact that with young
26:06
Speaker 1: girls who are pregnant and allow like telling and reporting
26:10
Speaker 1: to the parents, which could be another problematic issue about well,
26:12
Speaker 1: how far does hippah cover a minor and why why
26:17
Speaker 1: why are we not talking about that as more of
26:18
Speaker 1: a this is an issue if you really truly believe
26:21
Speaker 1: in hippa and privacy, they should cover all. But at
26:24
Speaker 1: the same time it's not. It's kind of a I
26:26
Speaker 1: can choose once again. Yeah, um, And going back to
26:31
Speaker 1: the funding, do you know, like, where is the funding
26:35
Speaker 1: coming from? How much funding are we talking about? This
26:38
Speaker 1: was the most fascinating part of my research. Um. I
26:42
Speaker 1: was expecting a lot of funding would be private through
26:44
Speaker 1: churches and you know, individuals who really feel passionately about
26:48
Speaker 1: this issue. I was surprised to find out how much
26:51
Speaker 1: funding is coming from your paycheck and my paycheck. Um.
26:56
Speaker 1: A lot of these crisis pregnancy centers get federal funding
26:59
Speaker 1: for teaching abstinence only sex education. And we talked a
27:03
Speaker 1: little bit about the state funding. In Georgia, a new
27:06
Speaker 1: bill was recently passed. I think it was two million
27:08
Speaker 1: dollars is going to crisis pregnancy centers, including some of
27:12
Speaker 1: these worst offenders that are most misleading on their website. UM.
27:16
Speaker 1: Texas I think a few years ago committed five million
27:20
Speaker 1: dollars to crisis pregnancy centers. It's since up to that
27:23
Speaker 1: investment to forty million dollars over five years. And uh,
27:28
Speaker 1: my favorite, at your local d m V you can
27:31
Speaker 1: go in and buy a Choose Life license plate and
27:34
Speaker 1: a portion of those proceeds benefit crisis pregnancy centers. Wow. Yeah,
27:40
Speaker 1: and I believe it's it's thirty two states in Washington,
27:43
Speaker 1: d C. Have those Choose Life last night checks. Ye. Wow. Okay,
27:49
Speaker 1: Well that's not infuriating at all. Um. Something else that
27:55
Speaker 1: I'm sure won't be infuriating at all. Who do you
27:57
Speaker 1: think this impacts the most? So the center I visited
28:01
Speaker 1: was in Jonesboro, UM, which is half an hour outside
28:05
Speaker 1: of Atlanta. It's a very it's a pretty low income community.
28:10
Speaker 1: I think a third of the households are on food stamps. UM.
28:13
Speaker 1: So this is impacting people who don't have other options
28:18
Speaker 1: available in their area. UM, low income women, Black women, who,
28:24
Speaker 1: as we mentioned, are suffering from well already insanely high
28:29
Speaker 1: maternal mortality rates. So it's it's it's impacting the most vulnerable.
28:35
Speaker 1: Can you speak to the history of these at all? Yeah,
28:39
Speaker 1: I was surprised to learn that Chrysis pregnancy centers are
28:41
Speaker 1: even older than Roe versus Wade UM. But they've been
28:45
Speaker 1: around for a long time. So Robert Pearson's considered the
28:49
Speaker 1: founding father of crisis pregnancy centers. The first one was
28:52
Speaker 1: opened in nineteen sixty seven in Hawaii. Yeah, and UM.
28:56
Speaker 1: After that, two years later he founded the Pearson found
29:00
Speaker 1: Asian which is based in St. Louis, and the goal
29:03
Speaker 1: was to assist local groups with setting up cbcs, and
29:08
Speaker 1: they provide things like pamphlets, discounted video equipment, and slide
29:12
Speaker 1: shows like the twenty seven minute long Caring includes many
29:17
Speaker 1: pictures of bloody fetuses and waist cans and one of
29:20
Speaker 1: a gurning carrying a woman who was apparently dead and
29:23
Speaker 1: is covered by a sheet that ends by comparing abortion
29:26
Speaker 1: to the final solution. And that's from Crisis Pregnancy Center. Watch.
29:31
Speaker 1: There's a lot of that kind of language, um, and
29:35
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of people talking about even
29:38
Speaker 1: framing it as sort of a racial justice issue what
29:41
Speaker 1: they're doing, because if they're trying to lower rates of
29:44
Speaker 1: abortion among black women, it's as if, you know, because
29:48
Speaker 1: they're they're trying to fight this this genocide of I
29:54
Speaker 1: don't know exactly what the reasoning is, but it's definitely
29:57
Speaker 1: framed as almost like a human rights issue what they're doing, right, Yeah,
30:01
Speaker 1: I mean they already we were talking about this during
30:03
Speaker 1: the abortion I don't know if we actually said it,
30:05
Speaker 1: but they're calling it in fanside abortion. It's kind of
30:08
Speaker 1: like that's completely misleading in every way. Um, and what
30:11
Speaker 1: we're talking about and what we're talking about with rights
30:13
Speaker 1: in general. Yeah, And as I've mentioned many many times
30:17
Speaker 1: on the show, I come from a really small town
30:19
Speaker 1: in Georgia. UM. And I in eighth grade, I was
30:23
Speaker 1: on the debate team, and I was like me and
30:26
Speaker 1: one other kid were liberal and everyone else's conservative, so
30:29
Speaker 1: it's always us on the other side. And when abortion
30:34
Speaker 1: that was the debate, the issue. I just remember on
30:37
Speaker 1: the other side, they showed slideshows of all these babies
30:41
Speaker 1: in like dumpsters and trash cans, and then me and
30:45
Speaker 1: my partner had to go up and we were like, well,
30:48
Speaker 1: that's terrible. Know what he's saying. This is good, but
30:53
Speaker 1: also this issarially was right, and again like it's all
30:57
Speaker 1: about the misleading like uh, feedomon ring that continues to
31:01
Speaker 1: happen every day in any type of political agenda, like
31:06
Speaker 1: the best way to get to people who don't truly
31:07
Speaker 1: know it's to cost fear. Well, yeah, and like you
31:11
Speaker 1: said that, a lot of times it is someone whose
31:13
Speaker 1: way ring and isn't sure. And if you come in
31:15
Speaker 1: and watch a video like that, I'm sure it's very effective.
31:19
Speaker 1: And even if just to have to say afterwards, like
31:22
Speaker 1: me and eighth grade, it didn't change how it felt,
31:25
Speaker 1: but I certainly felt worse at voice what I thought
31:29
Speaker 1: after it. Again, when people make the term murdering babies
31:34
Speaker 1: your murderer, how do you argue with that, I mean,
31:37
Speaker 1: we really can't. Yeah, I love I love killing baby,
31:39
Speaker 1: let's do this. That's gonna be somebody's gonna pull that,
31:42
Speaker 1: I know, but you know, that's that's the whole mentality.
31:48
Speaker 1: And I know with a lot of the pregnacy resource
31:50
Speaker 1: centers actually the ones that I've seen because with me
31:53
Speaker 1: working in the state level UM, they do wear scrubs
31:56
Speaker 1: and I think one or two of them are not
31:58
Speaker 1: necessarily nurses but their assistance so they're in the field
32:03
Speaker 1: but not quite the same guidelines of education wise. I
32:07
Speaker 1: saw a lot of UM nursing students and scenographers who
32:11
Speaker 1: are getting their practical experience doing an internship at a
32:14
Speaker 1: crisis pregnancy center. It's recognized and that's kind of how
32:18
Speaker 1: they get away with being medical. I guess UM in
32:21
Speaker 1: their conversations, and again, this is one of those things
32:24
Speaker 1: that causes a lot of guilt and young frightened people
32:28
Speaker 1: who are pregnant, who are in a place where they're
32:31
Speaker 1: not sure what to do, so they use tactics such
32:33
Speaker 1: as guilt and fear and um empathy in every way
32:38
Speaker 1: to try to persuade someone. One thing that's that struck
32:42
Speaker 1: me about some of the folks I met whose staff
32:45
Speaker 1: these centers is they really are warm, open, genuine people
32:50
Speaker 1: who seem to care. These are really like motherly figures
32:54
Speaker 1: that you see that people are reaching out for, because
32:56
Speaker 1: I've seen that as well. They come and touch you
32:58
Speaker 1: and hug on you a little bit and tell you
33:00
Speaker 1: everything's gonna be okay, and oftentimes we'll be like, let
33:02
Speaker 1: me pray with you, even though that might not be
33:04
Speaker 1: a thing of the center, but they want to make
33:07
Speaker 1: it so personal for you, as if they understand you
33:09
Speaker 1: and your well being, and to be fair, maybe they
33:12
Speaker 1: do because they're that passionate. But of course it comes
33:15
Speaker 1: very one sided, Um, without an understanding of what this
33:19
Speaker 1: could be the fallout in the future. Yeah, I think
33:22
Speaker 1: I read another account from someone who went to a
33:26
Speaker 1: crisis pregnancy center. I think she might have been an
33:28
Speaker 1: undercover person. But in either case, the person she the
33:31
Speaker 1: nurse if it was at nurse, but whoever she met
33:34
Speaker 1: at the crisis pregnancy center followed up with her for
33:37
Speaker 1: two months, like called her on the phone, was you know,
33:39
Speaker 1: just checking out, how are you? How are things? I
33:41
Speaker 1: got to know her, So, Yeah, they're they're very personable,
33:46
Speaker 1: it seems generally, UM. But to go back to the
33:49
Speaker 1: history for a second, Um and Pierson, he wrote a
33:54
Speaker 1: widely accepted and used pamphlet outlining tactics to use to
33:57
Speaker 1: deceive women like He was pretty open about it, and
34:00
Speaker 1: then in n he said, obviously we're fighting Satan. A
34:04
Speaker 1: killer who in this case is the girl who wants
34:06
Speaker 1: to kill her baby, has no right to information that
34:08
Speaker 1: will help her kill her baby. Therefore, when she calls
34:11
Speaker 1: and says do you do abortions, we do not tell
34:13
Speaker 1: her no, we don't do abortions. So I can imagine
34:18
Speaker 1: if you truly believe that in it, it feels like
34:23
Speaker 1: you're fighting Satan. It's pretty powerful messaging. I think these
34:29
Speaker 1: people are definitely convinced that they're doing the right thing.
34:31
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, Again, when we were talking about feminism in itself,
34:35
Speaker 1: one of the big reasons people hate that word. Again,
34:38
Speaker 1: one of the big reasons that I had fights with
34:40
Speaker 1: my family is because feminism equals abortion d the story
34:44
Speaker 1: an abortion means murder and you care nothing about the baby.
34:48
Speaker 1: That's that's the whole picture for them. There's nothing else
34:51
Speaker 1: to that, even though obviously it's the very broad subject.
34:54
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what this fearmongering has become. Is they're
34:59
Speaker 1: trying and would take away life Yeah, and they've been
35:03
Speaker 1: very effective about it. Um. We have a little bit
35:06
Speaker 1: more to discuss, but first we're going to pause for
35:08
Speaker 1: one more quick break for work from our sponsors, and
35:23
Speaker 1: we're back. Thank you, Sposish. And one of the ways
35:26
Speaker 1: that they've gotten more effective, and you kind of touch
35:28
Speaker 1: on this, is that there's this old school and new school. Um,
35:31
Speaker 1: they've modernized, they've come into the twentieth century. You wrote
35:34
Speaker 1: about a conference that was recently held in Atlanta that
35:39
Speaker 1: was to make sure that CPCs are operating the most
35:41
Speaker 1: effectively and these are modern times. Can you talk a
35:45
Speaker 1: little bit about that. Yeah, there were so many interesting
35:49
Speaker 1: workshops that they were about people who came together staffers
35:52
Speaker 1: from crisis pregnancy centers around the country, UM, to sort
35:56
Speaker 1: of learn new best practices for their industry and how
36:00
Speaker 1: to stay competitive in this shifting landscape where you know,
36:04
Speaker 1: there's billboards that's another era now people who are what
36:08
Speaker 1: they call abortion minded or often what's the first thing
36:11
Speaker 1: you do? You google? You know, abortion clinic in my area?
36:15
Speaker 1: So how do you reach those people? Let's you know,
36:18
Speaker 1: there was a workshop on Google AdWords and how to
36:23
Speaker 1: utilize that to get people to your website, How to
36:25
Speaker 1: write a compelling landing page for your website? How do
36:28
Speaker 1: use Facebook? Um, you know, they're definitely trying to stay
36:32
Speaker 1: on the cutting edge of how people are searching for
36:35
Speaker 1: information around abortion and make sure they're meeting their target
36:38
Speaker 1: person there right, Yeah, I remember that. Um when that
36:42
Speaker 1: came out that if you type in abortion, probably one
36:46
Speaker 1: of the top three results is going to be at
36:48
Speaker 1: crisis pregnancy center because they did buy those like keywords. Um,
36:53
Speaker 1: so there, they've gotten pretty good at that as well. Um,
36:57
Speaker 1: as we as we wrap up, or what do you think?
37:01
Speaker 1: Why is this worth talking about? And what can and
37:05
Speaker 1: should be done? If anything? You know, it's interesting. Um,
37:09
Speaker 1: I'm from California, and so I think my understanding of
37:14
Speaker 1: the world and how things should be is is very
37:16
Speaker 1: colored by the you know, being from the coast and
37:19
Speaker 1: you know, relatively affluent state where you know you can
37:23
Speaker 1: an abortion, you just go get one or you know.
37:25
Speaker 1: And it wasn't until I moved to the South that
37:27
Speaker 1: I realized how different things look in different parts of
37:29
Speaker 1: the country. Um. You know the fact that there are
37:32
Speaker 1: only nine abortion providers in Georgia and nine d crisis
37:35
Speaker 1: pregnancy centers. That's not choice, that's not options. Um. And
37:42
Speaker 1: so I don't know the curtailing of access to fair, unbiased,
37:48
Speaker 1: truthful information about what options are available to you if
37:51
Speaker 1: you find yourself pregnant and you're not sure that that's
37:54
Speaker 1: the that's the direction you want to go. Uh, that's
37:57
Speaker 1: paramount and those right especially in places like Georgia, are
38:03
Speaker 1: being eroded. It's it's less and less easy to find
38:07
Speaker 1: information that women need, truly need. Um. So Yeah, I mean,
38:13
Speaker 1: I think with this coordinated effort that we're seeing in
38:16
Speaker 1: states across the South and the Midwest passing near total
38:20
Speaker 1: abortion bands, it might go up to the Supreme Court.
38:23
Speaker 1: Who you know, ro versus weight is legitimately in danger um. Yeah,
38:28
Speaker 1: this is a very real issue that's going to impact
38:31
Speaker 1: millions of women. Yeah. And um, like we said in
38:36
Speaker 1: our episode, on our recent episode on abortion, it's dangerous. Um.
38:42
Speaker 1: There there have been many cases of women's lives being
38:46
Speaker 1: endangered or and or um the fetus or child because
38:50
Speaker 1: they didn't get accurate information. Are they thought they were
38:53
Speaker 1: going to a hospital hospital, but they were going to
38:55
Speaker 1: a Catholic hospital. Um. So it just seems trans parent,
39:00
Speaker 1: transparency and knowing the facts when it comes to this
39:03
Speaker 1: like you have said very dangerous thing in our country,
39:07
Speaker 1: that is having a baby? What would you say to
39:10
Speaker 1: look for those who are actually googling and we know
39:13
Speaker 1: there's these tricks, and I know we kind of already
39:15
Speaker 1: touched on a little bit of the things that might
39:17
Speaker 1: be missing. What would you say for those who are
39:19
Speaker 1: researching now UM and looking things up while they do
39:22
Speaker 1: have access some of the key things that should look
39:24
Speaker 1: out for to show what is legitimately a choice site
39:28
Speaker 1: or choice center as opposed to one of these UM
39:33
Speaker 1: Christian basin ors that's not outright Christian? What would you say?
39:36
Speaker 1: There are two links that maybe we could put in
39:38
Speaker 1: the show notes or something UM that are super helpful.
39:41
Speaker 1: One of them is that map that Andrea schwarzen Gerber
39:44
Speaker 1: put together of all the crisis pregnancy centers across the
39:46
Speaker 1: United States. If there's if you've identified a clinic and
39:49
Speaker 1: you're not sure, cross reference it with that map and
39:52
Speaker 1: you'll be able to at least see what you might
39:54
Speaker 1: be able to expect when you go to one of
39:55
Speaker 1: these places. UM. There's also there's a National Abortion Providers
40:00
Speaker 1: Center that lists UM affiliated abortion providers in each state,
40:04
Speaker 1: And so if you want to make sure that you're
40:06
Speaker 1: going to a place that is not, um, you know,
40:09
Speaker 1: opposed to providing information and services around abortion. You can
40:13
Speaker 1: UM look it up there. Awesome. Thank you so much
40:17
Speaker 1: for joining us. Are there any projects that you're working
40:20
Speaker 1: on that you want to shout out while you're here,
40:21
Speaker 1: Things that you have done where people can find you,
40:23
Speaker 1: anything like that. Um, people can find me on my
40:26
Speaker 1: website maa craft dot com if they want to. I
40:29
Speaker 1: don't know. I write on a wide range of subjects,
40:32
Speaker 1: so it's not all it's not all reproductive health. Maybe
40:36
Speaker 1: not shout out anything but awesome stuff. Nonetheless, we talked
40:41
Speaker 1: about all kinds of things on this show, so go
40:43
Speaker 1: check that out if you would like listeners, UM, thanks again,
40:47
Speaker 1: and if you would like to email, as you can
40:49
Speaker 1: or email is Stuff Media mom Stuff at i art
40:52
Speaker 1: media dot com. It's new email, but all new emails
40:54
Speaker 1: sent to the old email arrived to the new career.
40:59
Speaker 1: We are professionals. UM. You can also find us on
41:01
Speaker 1: Instagram at stuff I Never Told You and on Twitter
41:04
Speaker 1: app Mom Stuff Podcast. Thanks to our super producer Andrew Howard,
41:08
Speaker 1: Play to be, Thanks again to my crossing, and thanks
41:12
Speaker 1: to you for listening. Thank you, Stuff I've never told
41:15
Speaker 1: you the production of I Heart Radios how stuff works.
41:17
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from I Heart Radio vi is at
41:18
Speaker 1: the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
41:21
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows,