July 3, 2021 • 41 mins
Maya Kroth stops by to take us inside a crisis pregnancy center in this classic episode.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stuff
I've Never told your production of iHeart Radio. So for
today's classic, we wanted to bring back an interview that
we did with my across a while back back in
(00:25):
the studio. Man such long ago, such long ago, as
they say, a whole time ago. Look I'm having a moment, yes,
but as an interview about crisis pregnancy centers, and we
wanted to bring this one back because we talked about
it quite a bit in our recent episode. It also
(00:49):
an interview that we did with Liz Winstead. Yes, and
it has been it's been in the news a lot lately,
especially as we've seen kind of a wave of anti
abortion laws and then a lot of times these places,
these CPCs are set up near abortion clinics, so they
look the same and kind of easily confused between the two.
(01:13):
So we thought we would bring back this classic episode.
Please enjoy. Hey, this is Annie. Hey, this is Samantha,
and welcome to stuff I've Never Told you, a production
of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. In Phay's episode,
(01:39):
we're going to be discussing something that I think, um
with all of the news coming out, might be on
some people's minds is important to discuss and to discuss it,
and it being crisis pregnancy centers. We are joined by Maya.
Would you like to introduce yourself and tell the listeners
a little bit about yourself? Nah? Yeah, thank you so
much for having me on. My name, miss Maya Craft.
(02:01):
I've been a journalist for about fifteen years, but I'm
sort of new to Atlanta. I'm from California originally, and
I landed in Atlanta about a year and a half
ago with kind of which I think was kind of
an interesting moment in Um. This the South, you know,
changing demographics of the South and and it's an especially
interesting place to be at this moment. So UM, when
(02:26):
my editor approached me to write this story about crisis
pregnancy centers with everything that was going on with the
changing reproductive rights landscape, I jumped on the opportunity. Yes,
and we are so glad to have you here because um,
your piece and medium was excellently done. UM and it's
called Inside the Shadow clinics for listeners who want to
look it up. And as you're writing it, it was
(02:48):
around the time that Brett Kavanaugh was being confirmed for
the Supreme Court, and as we record this now, several
states are passing very restrictive abortion laws, ultimately with the
goal of overturning Roe v. Wade. So we thought it
would be good time to talk about it. But let's
start with the basics. What are crisis pregnancy centers. Yeah,
(03:09):
crisis pregnancy centers. They're also sometimes called pregnancy resource centers.
These are centers that are run by faith based groups
UM that basically exists to talk women out of having
an abortion. UM. From the outside, they might look like
a traditional women's health clinic. Some of them even have
innocuous names like the Women's Clinic UM. But when you
(03:32):
get in there you see a lot of Christian literature
and the lobby so um. These centers often masquerade as
traditional women's healthcare clinics, but when you dig a little deeper,
you realize that's not what they are. A lot of
times they open up right across the street from a
planned parenthood although in states like Georgia where there are
(03:53):
so few abortion clinics, uh, they'll just open up anywhere
that you might find women who might be considering an abortion.
College campuses, that kind of thing, mm hmm. And I
know that Um. A while back, John Oliver did a
piece of them and they he kind of focused a
little bit on the vans, like they all move around
in vans and park outside. Oh yeah, there's one that
(04:15):
I think parks out front of a church in Hateville. Yeah.
I tried to go and catch it, but it wasn't
it wasn't keeping regular hours. They're really regularly available in
like a lot of suburban areas. I found because I
as I worked in defacts and as I worked with
state government stuff, and in the state of Georgia, they
kind of leaned towards faith based, ah, faith based, evidence
(04:37):
based of resources, and there are a lot almost per
county I think, and it's really available as an access
resource foremost teenage girl. Yeah, they're definitely much more prevalent
in Georgia than a Planned parenthood for example, or any
other kind of traditional women's sealth clinic that provides abortion services. Yeah,
(04:58):
and that's a good segue into my next question, which
is do you have any numbers around this? Yeah, there's
actually one of the researchers I interviewed from my piece
is this woman named Andreas Schwartz and Drew ber from
the University of Georgia. She's put together a map of
crisis pregnancy centers across the United States in an effort
to sort of help women identify is this a crisis
pregnancy center or is this a traditional medical clinic where
(05:21):
I'm going to find sort of more unbiased medical information. Um.
And the numbers that she came up with were somewhere
around crisis pregnancy centers in the United States. And just
for some perspective, that's about three times the number of
abortion clinics in the country. So they're outnumbering abortion clinics
three to one. In places like Georgia, it's more like
(05:42):
ten to one. Wow. Um. And I'm wondering compared to
the states that we talked about earlier when we had
our episode of about abortion, there are several states don't
have one abortion clinic or and then you compared to
how I wonder how many they have of those types
of crisis centers. Yeah. Uh. And one thing, like you said,
(06:02):
they do typically look like in a lot of cases,
like an abortion clinic, and you might go in and
they might be the staff there might be wearing like
scobs or some kind of medical attire. Um. But it
is typically run by volunteers. Correct, it depends. Some of
(06:24):
these places are quite well funded, they have budgets over
a million dollars a year. Others are shoe string operations
that are basically the extension of the local church. And
you might have a couple young people, you know, who
are basically youth pastor you know, kind of like that
sort of level, um, you know, earning a part time
salary to staff these centers. So it really runs the gamut.
(06:46):
And you you spoke to someone who worked that one
in Georgia, Correct, it did. Yeah, it was hard to
get access to these crisis pregnancy centers. They're not very
media friendly. I wonder why that there was one in Jonesboro,
Georgia where I was able to spend some time with
the two women who staff it and learn a little
(07:07):
bit about what goes on there, what kind of services
they offer, what their facilities look like, and um, what
their point of view is on on what they're doing. Um.
It was really it was really illuminating. But I think
the one thing that struck me most was how young,
how young these people were, and how far removed they
were from any kind of medical training. You know, they
(07:30):
were very passionate about their faith, and that's definitely the
place where they were coming from, right. I remember in
your PC she wrote about how didn't you show one
of them like a website? And he said, this is
a crisis pregnancy center website and he said like abortion
and there several times and she was like, are you sure? Yeah.
I thought it was a great sort of snapshot of
(07:50):
how this industry is changing, right, because the crisis pregnancy
centers have been around a long time. I'm sure everybody
has driven down the freeway past one of these billboards.
It's like Pregnant Scared called this eight hundred number. That's
been around forever, and it's kind of an older model
of crisis pregnancy centers. The new thing is obscuring the
(08:11):
link between the religious organization that usually backs these centers
and making them look more like medical clinics. So the
center that I visited was much more this old model.
Um it had one of those billboards out over the
boulevard and Jones Borough and that's how they got I
think most people through the door. So we I had
her pull up the website for one of these kind
(08:32):
of more twenty feet century, more savvy crisis pregnancy centers
where you could not tell, like, even if you were
like a media scholar looking at this website, you couldn't
tell that it's not an abortion clinic. You know, it
says want an abortion, schedule an appointment today and click here. Um.
And you know, she and I spent some time looking
at this website and she didn't believe me that it
(08:53):
was a crisis pregnancy center. So it's really you know,
even people within the industry don't entirely know the true
motivation of these things. So what was her response was
just like, no, that's not right, Like that was just
her whole she she personally was, um, not cool with
being that misleading. But then I asked her, I said,
you know, if you're so upfront about, you know, the
(09:15):
fact that you're a Christian ministry that's just providing alternative information,
why don't you say Christian pregnancy counseling on your sign?
Why do you just say pregnancy center. She didn't have
a great answer for that. Um, but this isn't about
an individual. This is a big, well funded network of
centers all across the country that are you know, conducting
(09:37):
this coordinated campaign to change the conversation around abortion. Right,
and um, there are three nationwide networks. Correct, Yeah, there
are three. UM Care net is the main one, NIFLA
is another, and Heartbeat International. Um. Yeah, so they they
(09:58):
run a majority of these centers, or the centers are
affiliated with those networks. And there's also a company called
Heritage House that provides a lot of the pamphlets and
materials that you'll find in these centers. UM plastic models
of a uterus with showing different stages of fetal development. Um.
(10:18):
All these pamphlets purportedly physician approved information about abortion that
turns out to be quite misleading, if not outright false. Yeah,
and um that's something that we should say if we
haven't already. But they're largely unregulated UM facilities, and they
(10:38):
promise all sorts of things some of them do. Could
you go into that a little bit. Yeah. Usually what
gets people in the door is the free pregnancy test
and free ultrasound. A lot of times, I think women
need proof of pregnancy in order to get certain benefits
from the state. UM. So that's what gets people in
the door. But a lot of times the pregnancy tests
(10:59):
that they're offering are not any more sophisticated than what
you'd buy at the drug store for a couple of bucks. Um,
and the ultrasounds are most of the time, these are
not licensed sonographers that can diagnose anything if you have
an abnormality in your pregnancy, or even tell how far
along you are. Um, it's just sort of to get
(11:19):
you to see this image and have that emotional moment
of potentially hearing a heartbeat. Um. It's there's really not
a lot of medical merit to the ultrasounds that some
of these centers might be doing, but that doesn't stop
them from I think there's sevent of crisis pregnancy centers
own an ultrasound machine. Yeah, and I was reading accounts
from women who have been and said that, um, there's
(11:43):
a lot of stress of like oh mommy, you know,
like already trying to make that make you feel that
emotional connection. Definitely. One of the first things that happens
if you walk into the crisis pregnancy center that I
was spending time with in Jonesboro is you get ushered
into a counseling room where you it with one of
the counselors and talk about your concerns about your pregnancy,
and they will hand you a little baby hat that
(12:06):
has been hand knit by one of the church volunteers
and have you hold it and touch it and sort
of get a sense for the warm, fuzzy relationship that
you might be able to have with your baby. You know,
it's it's definitely an emotional appeal. Wow. So let's go
further along with that for a second. Um, say I'm
a woman and I walk into one of these CPCSE
(12:27):
Crisis Pegnancy center. What can I expect? What will happen? Um? Well,
it depends. If you're going to one of these older
school places, you might see over religious symbol you might
see crosses on the wall and biblical music playing in
the lobby. You'll definitely see a lot of pamphlets in
the waiting room telling you about questionable things like post
(12:51):
abortion trauma syndrome or the link between breast cancer and abortion. Um,
these very misleading literature. If in one of these more
medicalized places, it might be indistinguishable from a medical clinic,
you might see a sonographer wandering around in scrubs. You know,
you might not see any religious symbolism at all. Um,
(13:12):
So it really depends. It's it's not always clear. Yeah,
and that is probably the biggest criticism of these facilities
is that they do mislead and they provide false information
and then try to pass themselves off as a legitimate
medical facility or a clinic. Um. Do you have any
(13:36):
specific examples around that. I know you mentioned like kind
of not well supported medical claim shall we say, but
any other examples like that? Um? Yeah, Well it was interesting.
A lot of the people I tried to interview for
this piece conducted themselves as though they were medical professionals,
and some of them actually were, and they said they
(13:56):
couldn't talk to me because of hipp a privacy. Interesting,
so they're kind of entering this really interesting gray area
between are you a medical clinic subject to those kind
of regulations? Are not? Um? Misleading medical claims? Yeah? I
mean the literature was full of um things that that
have just been proven to be false. There was pamphlets
(14:19):
in the lobby that imply that a fetus can feel
pain as early as six weeks. There's there's no medical
evidence to support that. Um. There are pamphlets around the
link between abortion and breast cancer that's kind of harped
on a lot in the anti abortion community. There's no
evidence for that. I mentioned before post abortion trauma syndrome.
(14:41):
No evidence for that either, so answer your question or
an um I I also found examples of depression, drug abuse,
increased chance of future miscarriage and or infertility, And yeah,
none of that is supported by research. Um Heartbeat International
(15:02):
has these suggested scripts. That's one of the things that
from there is of suicidal behaviors may be attributed to abortion.
So things like that, Yeah, definitely, And and what's interesting
is there's some um, you know, within these circles, there
are some people who tour the church circuit kind of
(15:22):
giving talks about the abortion they almost had or the
abortion they did have and how guilty they felt about it.
So um, there's there's definitely conversation around it within the
CPC community that it's not just if you've had an abortion,
you're a sinner. You know, a lot of times it's
embracing people who have had previous abortions and trying to
get them, um to to make a different decision by
(15:45):
telling these stories of how rough it's been for these
other women. And um I also read just to go
back to this sort of misleading aspect of it is
that they might make you wait hours for pregnancy test
which six minutes UM, so that they can they have
more time to give you this information, and they might
(16:05):
ask questions like, was there a loving Christian boyfriend who
would make a great dad? Um? Did I have a
kind do I have kind? Supportive parents would be excited
by the idea of a grandchild? Yeah? Yeah, I noticed.
There definitely seemed to be a lot of effort to
get the men involved in these decisions, to get these
(16:26):
fathers to come in UM and have counseling themselves. There's
a big program that a lot of these pregnancy centers
offer which is called Earn While You Learn, where basically,
if they've talked to you out of having an abortion,
you have a baby, you can come in UM for
an hour on a Tuesday night watch these DVDs about
(16:46):
parenting and some of them have sort of decent information
and some of them are really out there. UM, and
you watch these DVDs, you do these little homework worksheets,
and you earn baby bucks and you can earn mommy
Bucks and Daddy buck and you redeem these for onesies
and car seats and baby wipes and things that you
need if you're a new mom. Um, so there's definitely
(17:09):
an attempt to open the the whole community, right And
like you were saying earlier, Um, from the outside, they
do appear frequently, um like they're just a medical clinic,
and a lot of them will purposefully use like the
same fonts are last planned, parenthoed or something, which is
(17:30):
I mean, it's hard not to see that as misleading.
In all they frequently also used choice or choose in
their name. Um, So it's easy to see how you
might be especially if they're next to each other. You
might just go into the wrong one or not the
one that you intended to go to. Yeah, And I
(17:51):
think something that probably happens more frequently is not the
textbook scenario that you're thinking of where a woman just
knows she wants an abortion and wanders in this place.
It's people who are a lot more conflicted, people who
don't have a lot of information. Um. And you know,
people who need baby wipes and so you know, they
come to this pregnancy center and and do these courses
(18:14):
and that's just what they're doing. Um. Yeah, it's the
choice language is used a lot. We're trying to get
women to make a better choice. We have a little
bit more for your listeners, but first we're gonna pause
for a quick bike for word from responses and we're back.
(18:43):
Thank you sponsor. UM. I found a quote from Abby Johnson,
who is an anti abortion activist. We want to appear
neutral on the outside. The best called the best clients
you ever get is one that thinks they're walking into
an abortion clinic. Yeah. Yeah. And also a lot of
them have been used of doing delaying tactics. UM, so
that you miss the legal window for an abortion. Are
(19:06):
that maybe by the time you arrive at the decision, No,
I do want an abortion, it's more complicated and more expensive.
Maybe you can't afford it anymore. Um. Some of them
might say that you can wait and see if you miscarry.
There's definitely a lot of emphasis placed on on miscarriage,
how how common it is, and you know, you read
some of these pamphlets and you go it's almost like
(19:26):
just pray it away kind of thing, like there's um yeah,
I found I was surprised by that that the prevalence
of the information on miscarriage almost like if if God
wants this pregnancy to go away, you know, there's this avenue.
Were you able to ask the individual staff about those
(19:47):
types of literature why miscarriage is so emphasized. They you know,
they are young women and they're getting these pamphlets from
this centralized organization UM that's coordinating all this several levels
above their head. So when we talked about medical information,
you know, I would say, do you talk to these
women about miscarriage? Did you talk to them about maternal mortality?
(20:10):
You know, black women, maternal mortality rates are crazy in
this country and in the South especially UM. And you know,
they said, we're not talctors. We don't. That's not that's
not what we do. And that's kind of the rub, right,
that's the crux of the situation, the manipulative tactics like, well,
(20:30):
we can't tell you medical stuff, but we can tell
you morality stuff. Is really easy. This part is easy,
right right. Another thing that I imagine a lot of
people listening won't find surprising, But let's talk about contraception
for UM. Did you find that there was any kind
of literature or something about contraception not in the center
(20:53):
that I spent time in UM. And when I asked
about that, you know, it's commonly said, if you really
want to duce abortion. Give everybody condoms. You know, when
the more contraception there is, the more widely available, abortions
go down, right, And their view was, aren't condoms plentiful
everywhere else? Like it's like you could go outside and
its reigning condoms or something. It wasn't their job, that's
(21:16):
not what they're doing. Um. And they can, you know,
people who want contraception can find it everywhere, but not here. Okay,
I remember, I can't remember. I think her name was Betty,
but she she's involved in this a lot. And she
said that she thought condoms don't work like the time
or it was some number that was very, very large,
and the person said, I'm pretty sure they're ninety percent effective,
(21:38):
and she was like, no, I don't think so. Um.
There was an undercover investigation into fifty five of Ohio
CPCs and it found that none offered birth control and
they overwhelmingly pushed abstinence. Um. In fact, a popular used
CPC manual says, never counsel for contraception. UM. So yeah,
(22:00):
I mean, I guess it does make sense in a
weird way that they wouldn't if it's not their thing.
But also at the same time, it seems maybe it
should be part of their thing. I don't know. It's
a lot about the reproductive rights conversation that doesn't make
a lot of sense. I mean, it's kind of like
everything else. It's not about preventative, never about preventative. Yes,
(22:25):
take away from the episode, but also I found that, um,
a lot of CPCs are encouraged to tell women that
birth control causes hair loss, breast cancer, weight game headaches,
and memory loss, and that condoms are quote ineffective at
preventing pregnancy. It's almost like they're encouraging people to get
pregnant and have the baby, and have the baby, but
(22:47):
not help them after that baby is one or two,
maybe even then, not even before then. The centers I
spoke with took a lot of pride in in the
baby closets, you know, and all the things they give
to new mothers, and that was evidence that you know,
they do care about these fetuses outside of you know,
or these babies once they're out in the world. Um,
(23:07):
but you're right, it doesn't it doesn't extend past a
couple of years. And it's questionable whether that method is
is actually helping women or if it's you know, Andrea Schwartzendreber,
who I spoke with from my piece, says, you know,
you might some people might call that coercive if you're
making people will come in and watch biblical DVDs before
giving them baby wipes which cost you dollars. You know,
it sounds like it has to they have to earn
(23:28):
their way through something that they were being encouraged and
or most forcefubly made to do. You have to earn
to actually provide after the fact, right, And I think
this brings us to you A big question is are
they illegal? They certainly seem to be or proliferating at
(23:49):
a great pace. But yeah, it's it's a very interesting
time to be watching what's going on in the courts.
A couple of years ago, California issued a ruling that
crisis pregnancy centers were required to post information in the
lobby saying that they don't provide abortion services and and
listing the location of a nearby UM center where where
women could find those kinds of services. And um that
(24:12):
was struck down by the Supreme Court. Um Clarence Thomas
I think wrote the opinion, and they said, no, it's
an infringement on freedom of speech to make someone do that.
So um, but it'll be interesting to watch as they
as these centers become more and more medicalized, if they're
going to be subject to the kind of regulation that
medical clinics are are subject to. Absolutely, And and that
(24:34):
decision that you just mentioned that was like this is happening.
It was last summer, Yeah, it's happening now. Um And
so far like up until now, they stop just short
of being a medical provider on purpose, so they aren't
subject to regulations, they aren't subject to hippo, which is
(24:54):
why I found so interesting you said you mentioned that earlier,
which means that the INFA and gathered it's not confidential. Um.
One that Dakota law requires that women go to a
CPC before getting an abortion, and I believe it's being
challenged right now. And that's definitely the direction that it's
moving in Georgia too. There's there's state money in Georgia
(25:17):
that goes toward trying to steer women into one of
these pregnancy alternative centers um as they're trying to make
decisions about what to do with their pregnancy. Um. There
was I was reading the like privacy statement of one
of these more misleading medical centers, and it was very
(25:38):
concerning what they do with the information that they gather,
you know, in these very vulnerable counseling sessions. I'll have
to look it up and I can send it to you.
But there was a language like staff can use the
information that you tell us privately and share it with
your family, your pastor whoever we deem you know, important
(25:58):
to know this information. That's right thing. And that's already
the back and forth with the fact that with young
girls who are pregnant and allow like telling and reporting
to the parents, which could be another problematic issue about well,
how far does hippah cover a minor and why why
why are we not talking about that as more of
(26:18):
a this is an issue if you really truly believe
in hippa and privacy, they should cover all. But at
the same time it's not. It's kind of a I
can choose once again. Yeah, um, And going back to
the funding, do you know, like, where is the funding
coming from? How much funding are we talking about? This
was the most fascinating part of my research. Um. I
(26:42):
was expecting a lot of funding would be private through
churches and you know, individuals who really feel passionately about
this issue. I was surprised to find out how much
funding is coming from your paycheck and my paycheck. Um.
A lot of these crisis pregnancy centers get federal funding
for teaching abstinence only sex education. And we talked a
(27:03):
little bit about the state funding. In Georgia, a new
bill was recently passed. I think it was two million
dollars is going to crisis pregnancy centers, including some of
these worst offenders that are most misleading on their website. UM.
Texas I think a few years ago committed five million
dollars to crisis pregnancy centers. It's since up to that
investment to forty million dollars over five years. And uh,
(27:28):
my favorite, at your local d m V you can
go in and buy a Choose Life license plate and
a portion of those proceeds benefit crisis pregnancy centers. Wow. Yeah,
and I believe it's it's thirty two states in Washington,
d C. Have those Choose Life last night checks. Ye. Wow. Okay,
(27:49):
Well that's not infuriating at all. Um. Something else that
I'm sure won't be infuriating at all. Who do you
think this impacts the most? So the center I visited
was in Jonesboro, UM, which is half an hour outside
of Atlanta. It's a very it's a pretty low income community.
(28:10):
I think a third of the households are on food stamps. UM.
So this is impacting people who don't have other options
available in their area. UM, low income women, Black women, who,
as we mentioned, are suffering from well already insanely high
maternal mortality rates. So it's it's it's impacting the most vulnerable.
(28:35):
Can you speak to the history of these at all? Yeah,
I was surprised to learn that Chrysis pregnancy centers are
even older than Roe versus Wade UM. But they've been
around for a long time. So Robert Pearson's considered the
founding father of crisis pregnancy centers. The first one was
opened in nineteen sixty seven in Hawaii. Yeah, and UM.
(28:56):
After that, two years later he founded the Pearson found
Asian which is based in St. Louis, and the goal
was to assist local groups with setting up cbcs, and
they provide things like pamphlets, discounted video equipment, and slide
shows like the twenty seven minute long Caring includes many
(29:17):
pictures of bloody fetuses and waist cans and one of
a gurning carrying a woman who was apparently dead and
is covered by a sheet that ends by comparing abortion
to the final solution. And that's from Crisis Pregnancy Center. Watch.
There's a lot of that kind of language, um, and
a lot of a lot of people talking about even
(29:38):
framing it as sort of a racial justice issue what
they're doing, because if they're trying to lower rates of
abortion among black women, it's as if, you know, because
they're they're trying to fight this this genocide of I
don't know exactly what the reasoning is, but it's definitely
framed as almost like a human rights issue what they're doing, right, Yeah,
(30:01):
I mean they already we were talking about this during
the abortion I don't know if we actually said it,
but they're calling it in fanside abortion. It's kind of
like that's completely misleading in every way. Um, and what
we're talking about and what we're talking about with rights
in general. Yeah, And as I've mentioned many many times
on the show, I come from a really small town
in Georgia. UM. And I in eighth grade, I was
(30:23):
on the debate team, and I was like me and
one other kid were liberal and everyone else's conservative, so
it's always us on the other side. And when abortion
that was the debate, the issue. I just remember on
the other side, they showed slideshows of all these babies
in like dumpsters and trash cans, and then me and
(30:45):
my partner had to go up and we were like, well,
that's terrible. Know what he's saying. This is good, but
also this issarially was right, and again like it's all
about the misleading like uh, feedomon ring that continues to
happen every day in any type of political agenda, like
(31:06):
the best way to get to people who don't truly
know it's to cost fear. Well, yeah, and like you
said that, a lot of times it is someone whose
way ring and isn't sure. And if you come in
and watch a video like that, I'm sure it's very effective.
And even if just to have to say afterwards, like
me and eighth grade, it didn't change how it felt,
but I certainly felt worse at voice what I thought
(31:29):
after it. Again, when people make the term murdering babies
your murderer, how do you argue with that, I mean,
we really can't. Yeah, I love I love killing baby,
let's do this. That's gonna be somebody's gonna pull that,
I know, but you know, that's that's the whole mentality.
And I know with a lot of the pregnacy resource
(31:50):
centers actually the ones that I've seen because with me
working in the state level UM, they do wear scrubs
and I think one or two of them are not
necessarily nurses but their assistance so they're in the field
but not quite the same guidelines of education wise. I
saw a lot of UM nursing students and scenographers who
(32:11):
are getting their practical experience doing an internship at a
crisis pregnancy center. It's recognized and that's kind of how
they get away with being medical. I guess UM in
their conversations, and again, this is one of those things
that causes a lot of guilt and young frightened people
who are pregnant, who are in a place where they're
(32:31):
not sure what to do, so they use tactics such
as guilt and fear and um empathy in every way
to try to persuade someone. One thing that's that struck
me about some of the folks I met whose staff
these centers is they really are warm, open, genuine people
who seem to care. These are really like motherly figures
(32:54):
that you see that people are reaching out for, because
I've seen that as well. They come and touch you
and hug on you a little bit and tell you
everything's gonna be okay, and oftentimes we'll be like, let
me pray with you, even though that might not be
a thing of the center, but they want to make
it so personal for you, as if they understand you
and your well being, and to be fair, maybe they
do because they're that passionate. But of course it comes
(33:15):
very one sided, Um, without an understanding of what this
could be the fallout in the future. Yeah, I think
I read another account from someone who went to a
crisis pregnancy center. I think she might have been an
undercover person. But in either case, the person she the
nurse if it was at nurse, but whoever she met
at the crisis pregnancy center followed up with her for
(33:37):
two months, like called her on the phone, was you know,
just checking out, how are you? How are things? I
got to know her, So, Yeah, they're they're very personable,
it seems generally, UM. But to go back to the
history for a second, Um and Pierson, he wrote a
widely accepted and used pamphlet outlining tactics to use to
(33:57):
deceive women like He was pretty open about it, and
then in n he said, obviously we're fighting Satan. A
killer who in this case is the girl who wants
to kill her baby, has no right to information that
will help her kill her baby. Therefore, when she calls
and says do you do abortions, we do not tell
her no, we don't do abortions. So I can imagine
(34:18):
if you truly believe that in it, it feels like
you're fighting Satan. It's pretty powerful messaging. I think these
people are definitely convinced that they're doing the right thing.
Oh absolutely, Again, when we were talking about feminism in itself,
one of the big reasons people hate that word. Again,
(34:38):
one of the big reasons that I had fights with
my family is because feminism equals abortion d the story
an abortion means murder and you care nothing about the baby.
That's that's the whole picture for them. There's nothing else
to that, even though obviously it's the very broad subject.
And that's exactly what this fearmongering has become. Is they're
(34:59):
trying and would take away life Yeah, and they've been
very effective about it. Um. We have a little bit
more to discuss, but first we're going to pause for
one more quick break for work from our sponsors, and
(35:23):
we're back. Thank you, Sposish. And one of the ways
that they've gotten more effective, and you kind of touch
on this, is that there's this old school and new school. Um,
they've modernized, they've come into the twentieth century. You wrote
about a conference that was recently held in Atlanta that
was to make sure that CPCs are operating the most
effectively and these are modern times. Can you talk a
(35:45):
little bit about that. Yeah, there were so many interesting
workshops that they were about people who came together staffers
from crisis pregnancy centers around the country, UM, to sort
of learn new best practices for their industry and how
to stay competitive in this shifting landscape where you know,
there's billboards that's another era now people who are what
(36:08):
they call abortion minded or often what's the first thing
you do? You google? You know, abortion clinic in my area?
So how do you reach those people? Let's you know,
there was a workshop on Google AdWords and how to
utilize that to get people to your website, How to
write a compelling landing page for your website? How do
use Facebook? Um, you know, they're definitely trying to stay
(36:32):
on the cutting edge of how people are searching for
information around abortion and make sure they're meeting their target
person there right, Yeah, I remember that. Um when that
came out that if you type in abortion, probably one
of the top three results is going to be at
crisis pregnancy center because they did buy those like keywords. Um,
(36:53):
so there, they've gotten pretty good at that as well. Um,
as we as we wrap up, or what do you think?
Why is this worth talking about? And what can and
should be done? If anything? You know, it's interesting. Um,
I'm from California, and so I think my understanding of
(37:14):
the world and how things should be is is very
colored by the you know, being from the coast and
you know, relatively affluent state where you know you can
an abortion, you just go get one or you know.
And it wasn't until I moved to the South that
I realized how different things look in different parts of
the country. Um. You know the fact that there are
only nine abortion providers in Georgia and nine d crisis
(37:35):
pregnancy centers. That's not choice, that's not options. Um. And
so I don't know the curtailing of access to fair, unbiased,
truthful information about what options are available to you if
you find yourself pregnant and you're not sure that that's
the that's the direction you want to go. Uh, that's
(37:57):
paramount and those right especially in places like Georgia, are
being eroded. It's it's less and less easy to find
information that women need, truly need. Um. So Yeah, I mean,
I think with this coordinated effort that we're seeing in
states across the South and the Midwest passing near total
(38:20):
abortion bands, it might go up to the Supreme Court.
Who you know, ro versus weight is legitimately in danger um. Yeah,
this is a very real issue that's going to impact
millions of women. Yeah. And um, like we said in
our episode, on our recent episode on abortion, it's dangerous. Um.
(38:42):
There there have been many cases of women's lives being
endangered or and or um the fetus or child because
they didn't get accurate information. Are they thought they were
going to a hospital hospital, but they were going to
a Catholic hospital. Um. So it just seems trans parent,
transparency and knowing the facts when it comes to this
(39:03):
like you have said very dangerous thing in our country,
that is having a baby? What would you say to
look for those who are actually googling and we know
there's these tricks, and I know we kind of already
touched on a little bit of the things that might
be missing. What would you say for those who are
researching now UM and looking things up while they do
have access some of the key things that should look
(39:24):
out for to show what is legitimately a choice site
or choice center as opposed to one of these UM
Christian basin ors that's not outright Christian? What would you say?
There are two links that maybe we could put in
the show notes or something UM that are super helpful.
One of them is that map that Andrea schwarzen Gerber
(39:44):
put together of all the crisis pregnancy centers across the
United States. If there's if you've identified a clinic and
you're not sure, cross reference it with that map and
you'll be able to at least see what you might
be able to expect when you go to one of
these places. UM. There's also there's a National Abortion Providers
Center that lists UM affiliated abortion providers in each state,
(40:04):
And so if you want to make sure that you're
going to a place that is not, um, you know,
opposed to providing information and services around abortion. You can
UM look it up there. Awesome. Thank you so much
for joining us. Are there any projects that you're working
on that you want to shout out while you're here,
Things that you have done where people can find you,
anything like that. Um, people can find me on my
(40:26):
website maa craft dot com if they want to. I
don't know. I write on a wide range of subjects,
so it's not all it's not all reproductive health. Maybe
not shout out anything but awesome stuff. Nonetheless, we talked
about all kinds of things on this show, so go
check that out if you would like listeners, UM, thanks again,
(40:47):
and if you would like to email, as you can
or email is Stuff Media mom Stuff at i art
media dot com. It's new email, but all new emails
sent to the old email arrived to the new career.
We are professionals. UM. You can also find us on
Instagram at stuff I Never Told You and on Twitter
app Mom Stuff Podcast. Thanks to our super producer Andrew Howard,
(41:08):
Play to be, Thanks again to my crossing, and thanks
to you for listening. Thank you, Stuff I've never told
you the production of I Heart Radios how stuff works.
For more podcasts from I Heart Radio vi is at
the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows,
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stuff
I've Never told your production of iHeart Radio. So for
today's classic, we wanted to bring back an interview that
we did with my across a while back back in
(00:25):
the studio. Man such long ago, such long ago, as
they say, a whole time ago. Look I'm having a moment, yes,
but as an interview about crisis pregnancy centers, and we
wanted to bring this one back because we talked about
it quite a bit in our recent episode. It also
(00:49):
an interview that we did with Liz Winstead. Yes, and
it has been it's been in the news a lot lately,
especially as we've seen kind of a wave of anti
abortion laws and then a lot of times these places,
these CPCs are set up near abortion clinics, so they
look the same and kind of easily confused between the two.
(01:13):
So we thought we would bring back this classic episode.
Please enjoy. Hey, this is Annie. Hey, this is Samantha,
and welcome to stuff I've Never Told you, a production
of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. In Phay's episode,
(01:39):
we're going to be discussing something that I think, um
with all of the news coming out, might be on
some people's minds is important to discuss and to discuss it,
and it being crisis pregnancy centers. We are joined by Maya.
Would you like to introduce yourself and tell the listeners
a little bit about yourself? Nah? Yeah, thank you so
much for having me on. My name, miss Maya Craft.
(02:01):
I've been a journalist for about fifteen years, but I'm
sort of new to Atlanta. I'm from California originally, and
I landed in Atlanta about a year and a half
ago with kind of which I think was kind of
an interesting moment in Um. This the South, you know,
changing demographics of the South and and it's an especially
interesting place to be at this moment. So UM, when
(02:26):
my editor approached me to write this story about crisis
pregnancy centers with everything that was going on with the
changing reproductive rights landscape, I jumped on the opportunity. Yes,
and we are so glad to have you here because um,
your piece and medium was excellently done. UM and it's
called Inside the Shadow clinics for listeners who want to
look it up. And as you're writing it, it was
(02:48):
around the time that Brett Kavanaugh was being confirmed for
the Supreme Court, and as we record this now, several
states are passing very restrictive abortion laws, ultimately with the
goal of overturning Roe v. Wade. So we thought it
would be good time to talk about it. But let's
start with the basics. What are crisis pregnancy centers. Yeah,
(03:09):
crisis pregnancy centers. They're also sometimes called pregnancy resource centers.
These are centers that are run by faith based groups
UM that basically exists to talk women out of having
an abortion. UM. From the outside, they might look like
a traditional women's health clinic. Some of them even have
innocuous names like the Women's Clinic UM. But when you
(03:32):
get in there you see a lot of Christian literature
and the lobby so um. These centers often masquerade as
traditional women's healthcare clinics, but when you dig a little deeper,
you realize that's not what they are. A lot of
times they open up right across the street from a
planned parenthood although in states like Georgia where there are
(03:53):
so few abortion clinics, uh, they'll just open up anywhere
that you might find women who might be considering an abortion.
College campuses, that kind of thing, mm hmm. And I
know that Um. A while back, John Oliver did a
piece of them and they he kind of focused a
little bit on the vans, like they all move around
in vans and park outside. Oh yeah, there's one that
(04:15):
I think parks out front of a church in Hateville. Yeah.
I tried to go and catch it, but it wasn't
it wasn't keeping regular hours. They're really regularly available in
like a lot of suburban areas. I found because I
as I worked in defacts and as I worked with
state government stuff, and in the state of Georgia, they
kind of leaned towards faith based, ah, faith based, evidence
(04:37):
based of resources, and there are a lot almost per
county I think, and it's really available as an access
resource foremost teenage girl. Yeah, they're definitely much more prevalent
in Georgia than a Planned parenthood for example, or any
other kind of traditional women's sealth clinic that provides abortion services. Yeah,
(04:58):
and that's a good segue into my next question, which
is do you have any numbers around this? Yeah, there's
actually one of the researchers I interviewed from my piece
is this woman named Andreas Schwartz and Drew ber from
the University of Georgia. She's put together a map of
crisis pregnancy centers across the United States in an effort
to sort of help women identify is this a crisis
pregnancy center or is this a traditional medical clinic where
(05:21):
I'm going to find sort of more unbiased medical information. Um.
And the numbers that she came up with were somewhere
around crisis pregnancy centers in the United States. And just
for some perspective, that's about three times the number of
abortion clinics in the country. So they're outnumbering abortion clinics
three to one. In places like Georgia, it's more like
(05:42):
ten to one. Wow. Um. And I'm wondering compared to
the states that we talked about earlier when we had
our episode of about abortion, there are several states don't
have one abortion clinic or and then you compared to
how I wonder how many they have of those types
of crisis centers. Yeah. Uh. And one thing, like you said,
(06:02):
they do typically look like in a lot of cases,
like an abortion clinic, and you might go in and
they might be the staff there might be wearing like
scobs or some kind of medical attire. Um. But it
is typically run by volunteers. Correct, it depends. Some of
(06:24):
these places are quite well funded, they have budgets over
a million dollars a year. Others are shoe string operations
that are basically the extension of the local church. And
you might have a couple young people, you know, who
are basically youth pastor you know, kind of like that
sort of level, um, you know, earning a part time
salary to staff these centers. So it really runs the gamut.
(06:46):
And you you spoke to someone who worked that one
in Georgia, Correct, it did. Yeah, it was hard to
get access to these crisis pregnancy centers. They're not very
media friendly. I wonder why that there was one in Jonesboro,
Georgia where I was able to spend some time with
the two women who staff it and learn a little
(07:07):
bit about what goes on there, what kind of services
they offer, what their facilities look like, and um, what
their point of view is on on what they're doing. Um.
It was really it was really illuminating. But I think
the one thing that struck me most was how young,
how young these people were, and how far removed they
were from any kind of medical training. You know, they
(07:30):
were very passionate about their faith, and that's definitely the
place where they were coming from, right. I remember in
your PC she wrote about how didn't you show one
of them like a website? And he said, this is
a crisis pregnancy center website and he said like abortion
and there several times and she was like, are you sure? Yeah.
I thought it was a great sort of snapshot of
(07:50):
how this industry is changing, right, because the crisis pregnancy
centers have been around a long time. I'm sure everybody
has driven down the freeway past one of these billboards.
It's like Pregnant Scared called this eight hundred number. That's
been around forever, and it's kind of an older model
of crisis pregnancy centers. The new thing is obscuring the
(08:11):
link between the religious organization that usually backs these centers
and making them look more like medical clinics. So the
center that I visited was much more this old model.
Um it had one of those billboards out over the
boulevard and Jones Borough and that's how they got I
think most people through the door. So we I had
her pull up the website for one of these kind
(08:32):
of more twenty feet century, more savvy crisis pregnancy centers
where you could not tell, like, even if you were
like a media scholar looking at this website, you couldn't
tell that it's not an abortion clinic. You know, it
says want an abortion, schedule an appointment today and click here. Um.
And you know, she and I spent some time looking
at this website and she didn't believe me that it
(08:53):
was a crisis pregnancy center. So it's really you know,
even people within the industry don't entirely know the true
motivation of these things. So what was her response was
just like, no, that's not right, Like that was just
her whole she she personally was, um, not cool with
being that misleading. But then I asked her, I said,
you know, if you're so upfront about, you know, the
(09:15):
fact that you're a Christian ministry that's just providing alternative information,
why don't you say Christian pregnancy counseling on your sign?
Why do you just say pregnancy center. She didn't have
a great answer for that. Um, but this isn't about
an individual. This is a big, well funded network of
centers all across the country that are you know, conducting
(09:37):
this coordinated campaign to change the conversation around abortion. Right,
and um, there are three nationwide networks. Correct, Yeah, there
are three. UM Care net is the main one, NIFLA
is another, and Heartbeat International. Um. Yeah, so they they
(09:58):
run a majority of these centers, or the centers are
affiliated with those networks. And there's also a company called
Heritage House that provides a lot of the pamphlets and
materials that you'll find in these centers. UM plastic models
of a uterus with showing different stages of fetal development. Um.
(10:18):
All these pamphlets purportedly physician approved information about abortion that
turns out to be quite misleading, if not outright false. Yeah,
and um that's something that we should say if we
haven't already. But they're largely unregulated UM facilities, and they
(10:38):
promise all sorts of things some of them do. Could
you go into that a little bit. Yeah. Usually what
gets people in the door is the free pregnancy test
and free ultrasound. A lot of times, I think women
need proof of pregnancy in order to get certain benefits
from the state. UM. So that's what gets people in
the door. But a lot of times the pregnancy tests
(10:59):
that they're offering are not any more sophisticated than what
you'd buy at the drug store for a couple of bucks. Um,
and the ultrasounds are most of the time, these are
not licensed sonographers that can diagnose anything if you have
an abnormality in your pregnancy, or even tell how far
along you are. Um, it's just sort of to get
(11:19):
you to see this image and have that emotional moment
of potentially hearing a heartbeat. Um. It's there's really not
a lot of medical merit to the ultrasounds that some
of these centers might be doing, but that doesn't stop
them from I think there's sevent of crisis pregnancy centers
own an ultrasound machine. Yeah, and I was reading accounts
from women who have been and said that, um, there's
(11:43):
a lot of stress of like oh mommy, you know,
like already trying to make that make you feel that
emotional connection. Definitely. One of the first things that happens
if you walk into the crisis pregnancy center that I
was spending time with in Jonesboro is you get ushered
into a counseling room where you it with one of
the counselors and talk about your concerns about your pregnancy,
and they will hand you a little baby hat that
(12:06):
has been hand knit by one of the church volunteers
and have you hold it and touch it and sort
of get a sense for the warm, fuzzy relationship that
you might be able to have with your baby. You know,
it's it's definitely an emotional appeal. Wow. So let's go
further along with that for a second. Um, say I'm
a woman and I walk into one of these CPCSE
(12:27):
Crisis Pegnancy center. What can I expect? What will happen? Um? Well,
it depends. If you're going to one of these older
school places, you might see over religious symbol you might
see crosses on the wall and biblical music playing in
the lobby. You'll definitely see a lot of pamphlets in
the waiting room telling you about questionable things like post
(12:51):
abortion trauma syndrome or the link between breast cancer and abortion. Um,
these very misleading literature. If in one of these more
medicalized places, it might be indistinguishable from a medical clinic,
you might see a sonographer wandering around in scrubs. You know,
you might not see any religious symbolism at all. Um,
(13:12):
So it really depends. It's it's not always clear. Yeah,
and that is probably the biggest criticism of these facilities
is that they do mislead and they provide false information
and then try to pass themselves off as a legitimate
medical facility or a clinic. Um. Do you have any
(13:36):
specific examples around that. I know you mentioned like kind
of not well supported medical claim shall we say, but
any other examples like that? Um? Yeah, Well it was interesting.
A lot of the people I tried to interview for
this piece conducted themselves as though they were medical professionals,
and some of them actually were, and they said they
(13:56):
couldn't talk to me because of hipp a privacy. Interesting,
so they're kind of entering this really interesting gray area
between are you a medical clinic subject to those kind
of regulations? Are not? Um? Misleading medical claims? Yeah? I
mean the literature was full of um things that that
have just been proven to be false. There was pamphlets
(14:19):
in the lobby that imply that a fetus can feel
pain as early as six weeks. There's there's no medical
evidence to support that. Um. There are pamphlets around the
link between abortion and breast cancer that's kind of harped
on a lot in the anti abortion community. There's no
evidence for that. I mentioned before post abortion trauma syndrome.
(14:41):
No evidence for that either, so answer your question or
an um I I also found examples of depression, drug abuse,
increased chance of future miscarriage and or infertility, And yeah,
none of that is supported by research. Um Heartbeat International
(15:02):
has these suggested scripts. That's one of the things that
from there is of suicidal behaviors may be attributed to abortion.
So things like that, Yeah, definitely, And and what's interesting
is there's some um, you know, within these circles, there
are some people who tour the church circuit kind of
(15:22):
giving talks about the abortion they almost had or the
abortion they did have and how guilty they felt about it.
So um, there's there's definitely conversation around it within the
CPC community that it's not just if you've had an abortion,
you're a sinner. You know, a lot of times it's
embracing people who have had previous abortions and trying to
get them, um to to make a different decision by
(15:45):
telling these stories of how rough it's been for these
other women. And um I also read just to go
back to this sort of misleading aspect of it is
that they might make you wait hours for pregnancy test
which six minutes UM, so that they can they have
more time to give you this information, and they might
(16:05):
ask questions like, was there a loving Christian boyfriend who
would make a great dad? Um? Did I have a
kind do I have kind? Supportive parents would be excited
by the idea of a grandchild? Yeah? Yeah, I noticed.
There definitely seemed to be a lot of effort to
get the men involved in these decisions, to get these
(16:26):
fathers to come in UM and have counseling themselves. There's
a big program that a lot of these pregnancy centers
offer which is called Earn While You Learn, where basically,
if they've talked to you out of having an abortion,
you have a baby, you can come in UM for
an hour on a Tuesday night watch these DVDs about
(16:46):
parenting and some of them have sort of decent information
and some of them are really out there. UM, and
you watch these DVDs, you do these little homework worksheets,
and you earn baby bucks and you can earn mommy
Bucks and Daddy buck and you redeem these for onesies
and car seats and baby wipes and things that you
need if you're a new mom. Um, so there's definitely
(17:09):
an attempt to open the the whole community, right And
like you were saying earlier, Um, from the outside, they
do appear frequently, um like they're just a medical clinic,
and a lot of them will purposefully use like the
same fonts are last planned, parenthoed or something, which is
(17:30):
I mean, it's hard not to see that as misleading.
In all they frequently also used choice or choose in
their name. Um, So it's easy to see how you
might be especially if they're next to each other. You
might just go into the wrong one or not the
one that you intended to go to. Yeah, And I
(17:51):
think something that probably happens more frequently is not the
textbook scenario that you're thinking of where a woman just
knows she wants an abortion and wanders in this place.
It's people who are a lot more conflicted, people who
don't have a lot of information. Um. And you know,
people who need baby wipes and so you know, they
come to this pregnancy center and and do these courses
(18:14):
and that's just what they're doing. Um. Yeah, it's the
choice language is used a lot. We're trying to get
women to make a better choice. We have a little
bit more for your listeners, but first we're gonna pause
for a quick bike for word from responses and we're back.
(18:43):
Thank you sponsor. UM. I found a quote from Abby Johnson,
who is an anti abortion activist. We want to appear
neutral on the outside. The best called the best clients
you ever get is one that thinks they're walking into
an abortion clinic. Yeah. Yeah. And also a lot of
them have been used of doing delaying tactics. UM, so
that you miss the legal window for an abortion. Are
(19:06):
that maybe by the time you arrive at the decision, No,
I do want an abortion, it's more complicated and more expensive.
Maybe you can't afford it anymore. Um. Some of them
might say that you can wait and see if you miscarry.
There's definitely a lot of emphasis placed on on miscarriage,
how how common it is, and you know, you read
some of these pamphlets and you go it's almost like
(19:26):
just pray it away kind of thing, like there's um yeah,
I found I was surprised by that that the prevalence
of the information on miscarriage almost like if if God
wants this pregnancy to go away, you know, there's this avenue.
Were you able to ask the individual staff about those
(19:47):
types of literature why miscarriage is so emphasized. They you know,
they are young women and they're getting these pamphlets from
this centralized organization UM that's coordinating all this several levels
above their head. So when we talked about medical information,
you know, I would say, do you talk to these
women about miscarriage? Did you talk to them about maternal mortality?
(20:10):
You know, black women, maternal mortality rates are crazy in
this country and in the South especially UM. And you know,
they said, we're not talctors. We don't. That's not that's
not what we do. And that's kind of the rub, right,
that's the crux of the situation, the manipulative tactics like, well,
(20:30):
we can't tell you medical stuff, but we can tell
you morality stuff. Is really easy. This part is easy,
right right. Another thing that I imagine a lot of
people listening won't find surprising, But let's talk about contraception
for UM. Did you find that there was any kind
of literature or something about contraception not in the center
(20:53):
that I spent time in UM. And when I asked
about that, you know, it's commonly said, if you really
want to duce abortion. Give everybody condoms. You know, when
the more contraception there is, the more widely available, abortions
go down, right, And their view was, aren't condoms plentiful
everywhere else? Like it's like you could go outside and
its reigning condoms or something. It wasn't their job, that's
(21:16):
not what they're doing. Um. And they can, you know,
people who want contraception can find it everywhere, but not here. Okay,
I remember, I can't remember. I think her name was Betty,
but she she's involved in this a lot. And she
said that she thought condoms don't work like the time
or it was some number that was very, very large,
and the person said, I'm pretty sure they're ninety percent effective,
(21:38):
and she was like, no, I don't think so. Um.
There was an undercover investigation into fifty five of Ohio
CPCs and it found that none offered birth control and
they overwhelmingly pushed abstinence. Um. In fact, a popular used
CPC manual says, never counsel for contraception. UM. So yeah,
(22:00):
I mean, I guess it does make sense in a
weird way that they wouldn't if it's not their thing.
But also at the same time, it seems maybe it
should be part of their thing. I don't know. It's
a lot about the reproductive rights conversation that doesn't make
a lot of sense. I mean, it's kind of like
everything else. It's not about preventative, never about preventative. Yes,
(22:25):
take away from the episode, but also I found that, um,
a lot of CPCs are encouraged to tell women that
birth control causes hair loss, breast cancer, weight game headaches,
and memory loss, and that condoms are quote ineffective at
preventing pregnancy. It's almost like they're encouraging people to get
pregnant and have the baby, and have the baby, but
(22:47):
not help them after that baby is one or two,
maybe even then, not even before then. The centers I
spoke with took a lot of pride in in the
baby closets, you know, and all the things they give
to new mothers, and that was evidence that you know,
they do care about these fetuses outside of you know,
or these babies once they're out in the world. Um,
(23:07):
but you're right, it doesn't it doesn't extend past a
couple of years. And it's questionable whether that method is
is actually helping women or if it's you know, Andrea Schwartzendreber,
who I spoke with from my piece, says, you know,
you might some people might call that coercive if you're
making people will come in and watch biblical DVDs before
giving them baby wipes which cost you dollars. You know,
it sounds like it has to they have to earn
(23:28):
their way through something that they were being encouraged and
or most forcefubly made to do. You have to earn
to actually provide after the fact, right, And I think
this brings us to you A big question is are
they illegal? They certainly seem to be or proliferating at
(23:49):
a great pace. But yeah, it's it's a very interesting
time to be watching what's going on in the courts.
A couple of years ago, California issued a ruling that
crisis pregnancy centers were required to post information in the
lobby saying that they don't provide abortion services and and
listing the location of a nearby UM center where where
women could find those kinds of services. And um that
(24:12):
was struck down by the Supreme Court. Um Clarence Thomas
I think wrote the opinion, and they said, no, it's
an infringement on freedom of speech to make someone do that.
So um, but it'll be interesting to watch as they
as these centers become more and more medicalized, if they're
going to be subject to the kind of regulation that
medical clinics are are subject to. Absolutely, And and that
(24:34):
decision that you just mentioned that was like this is happening.
It was last summer, Yeah, it's happening now. Um And
so far like up until now, they stop just short
of being a medical provider on purpose, so they aren't
subject to regulations, they aren't subject to hippo, which is
(24:54):
why I found so interesting you said you mentioned that earlier,
which means that the INFA and gathered it's not confidential. Um.
One that Dakota law requires that women go to a
CPC before getting an abortion, and I believe it's being
challenged right now. And that's definitely the direction that it's
moving in Georgia too. There's there's state money in Georgia
(25:17):
that goes toward trying to steer women into one of
these pregnancy alternative centers um as they're trying to make
decisions about what to do with their pregnancy. Um. There
was I was reading the like privacy statement of one
of these more misleading medical centers, and it was very
(25:38):
concerning what they do with the information that they gather,
you know, in these very vulnerable counseling sessions. I'll have
to look it up and I can send it to you.
But there was a language like staff can use the
information that you tell us privately and share it with
your family, your pastor whoever we deem you know, important
(25:58):
to know this information. That's right thing. And that's already
the back and forth with the fact that with young
girls who are pregnant and allow like telling and reporting
to the parents, which could be another problematic issue about well,
how far does hippah cover a minor and why why
why are we not talking about that as more of
(26:18):
a this is an issue if you really truly believe
in hippa and privacy, they should cover all. But at
the same time it's not. It's kind of a I
can choose once again. Yeah, um, And going back to
the funding, do you know, like, where is the funding
coming from? How much funding are we talking about? This
was the most fascinating part of my research. Um. I
(26:42):
was expecting a lot of funding would be private through
churches and you know, individuals who really feel passionately about
this issue. I was surprised to find out how much
funding is coming from your paycheck and my paycheck. Um.
A lot of these crisis pregnancy centers get federal funding
for teaching abstinence only sex education. And we talked a
(27:03):
little bit about the state funding. In Georgia, a new
bill was recently passed. I think it was two million
dollars is going to crisis pregnancy centers, including some of
these worst offenders that are most misleading on their website. UM.
Texas I think a few years ago committed five million
dollars to crisis pregnancy centers. It's since up to that
investment to forty million dollars over five years. And uh,
(27:28):
my favorite, at your local d m V you can
go in and buy a Choose Life license plate and
a portion of those proceeds benefit crisis pregnancy centers. Wow. Yeah,
and I believe it's it's thirty two states in Washington,
d C. Have those Choose Life last night checks. Ye. Wow. Okay,
(27:49):
Well that's not infuriating at all. Um. Something else that
I'm sure won't be infuriating at all. Who do you
think this impacts the most? So the center I visited
was in Jonesboro, UM, which is half an hour outside
of Atlanta. It's a very it's a pretty low income community.
(28:10):
I think a third of the households are on food stamps. UM.
So this is impacting people who don't have other options
available in their area. UM, low income women, Black women, who,
as we mentioned, are suffering from well already insanely high
maternal mortality rates. So it's it's it's impacting the most vulnerable.
(28:35):
Can you speak to the history of these at all? Yeah,
I was surprised to learn that Chrysis pregnancy centers are
even older than Roe versus Wade UM. But they've been
around for a long time. So Robert Pearson's considered the
founding father of crisis pregnancy centers. The first one was
opened in nineteen sixty seven in Hawaii. Yeah, and UM.
(28:56):
After that, two years later he founded the Pearson found
Asian which is based in St. Louis, and the goal
was to assist local groups with setting up cbcs, and
they provide things like pamphlets, discounted video equipment, and slide
shows like the twenty seven minute long Caring includes many
(29:17):
pictures of bloody fetuses and waist cans and one of
a gurning carrying a woman who was apparently dead and
is covered by a sheet that ends by comparing abortion
to the final solution. And that's from Crisis Pregnancy Center. Watch.
There's a lot of that kind of language, um, and
a lot of a lot of people talking about even
(29:38):
framing it as sort of a racial justice issue what
they're doing, because if they're trying to lower rates of
abortion among black women, it's as if, you know, because
they're they're trying to fight this this genocide of I
don't know exactly what the reasoning is, but it's definitely
framed as almost like a human rights issue what they're doing, right, Yeah,
(30:01):
I mean they already we were talking about this during
the abortion I don't know if we actually said it,
but they're calling it in fanside abortion. It's kind of
like that's completely misleading in every way. Um, and what
we're talking about and what we're talking about with rights
in general. Yeah, And as I've mentioned many many times
on the show, I come from a really small town
in Georgia. UM. And I in eighth grade, I was
(30:23):
on the debate team, and I was like me and
one other kid were liberal and everyone else's conservative, so
it's always us on the other side. And when abortion
that was the debate, the issue. I just remember on
the other side, they showed slideshows of all these babies
in like dumpsters and trash cans, and then me and
(30:45):
my partner had to go up and we were like, well,
that's terrible. Know what he's saying. This is good, but
also this issarially was right, and again like it's all
about the misleading like uh, feedomon ring that continues to
happen every day in any type of political agenda, like
(31:06):
the best way to get to people who don't truly
know it's to cost fear. Well, yeah, and like you
said that, a lot of times it is someone whose
way ring and isn't sure. And if you come in
and watch a video like that, I'm sure it's very effective.
And even if just to have to say afterwards, like
me and eighth grade, it didn't change how it felt,
but I certainly felt worse at voice what I thought
(31:29):
after it. Again, when people make the term murdering babies
your murderer, how do you argue with that, I mean,
we really can't. Yeah, I love I love killing baby,
let's do this. That's gonna be somebody's gonna pull that,
I know, but you know, that's that's the whole mentality.
And I know with a lot of the pregnacy resource
(31:50):
centers actually the ones that I've seen because with me
working in the state level UM, they do wear scrubs
and I think one or two of them are not
necessarily nurses but their assistance so they're in the field
but not quite the same guidelines of education wise. I
saw a lot of UM nursing students and scenographers who
(32:11):
are getting their practical experience doing an internship at a
crisis pregnancy center. It's recognized and that's kind of how
they get away with being medical. I guess UM in
their conversations, and again, this is one of those things
that causes a lot of guilt and young frightened people
who are pregnant, who are in a place where they're
(32:31):
not sure what to do, so they use tactics such
as guilt and fear and um empathy in every way
to try to persuade someone. One thing that's that struck
me about some of the folks I met whose staff
these centers is they really are warm, open, genuine people
who seem to care. These are really like motherly figures
(32:54):
that you see that people are reaching out for, because
I've seen that as well. They come and touch you
and hug on you a little bit and tell you
everything's gonna be okay, and oftentimes we'll be like, let
me pray with you, even though that might not be
a thing of the center, but they want to make
it so personal for you, as if they understand you
and your well being, and to be fair, maybe they
do because they're that passionate. But of course it comes
(33:15):
very one sided, Um, without an understanding of what this
could be the fallout in the future. Yeah, I think
I read another account from someone who went to a
crisis pregnancy center. I think she might have been an
undercover person. But in either case, the person she the
nurse if it was at nurse, but whoever she met
at the crisis pregnancy center followed up with her for
(33:37):
two months, like called her on the phone, was you know,
just checking out, how are you? How are things? I
got to know her, So, Yeah, they're they're very personable,
it seems generally, UM. But to go back to the
history for a second, Um and Pierson, he wrote a
widely accepted and used pamphlet outlining tactics to use to
(33:57):
deceive women like He was pretty open about it, and
then in n he said, obviously we're fighting Satan. A
killer who in this case is the girl who wants
to kill her baby, has no right to information that
will help her kill her baby. Therefore, when she calls
and says do you do abortions, we do not tell
her no, we don't do abortions. So I can imagine
(34:18):
if you truly believe that in it, it feels like
you're fighting Satan. It's pretty powerful messaging. I think these
people are definitely convinced that they're doing the right thing.
Oh absolutely, Again, when we were talking about feminism in itself,
one of the big reasons people hate that word. Again,
(34:38):
one of the big reasons that I had fights with
my family is because feminism equals abortion d the story
an abortion means murder and you care nothing about the baby.
That's that's the whole picture for them. There's nothing else
to that, even though obviously it's the very broad subject.
And that's exactly what this fearmongering has become. Is they're
(34:59):
trying and would take away life Yeah, and they've been
very effective about it. Um. We have a little bit
more to discuss, but first we're going to pause for
one more quick break for work from our sponsors, and
(35:23):
we're back. Thank you, Sposish. And one of the ways
that they've gotten more effective, and you kind of touch
on this, is that there's this old school and new school. Um,
they've modernized, they've come into the twentieth century. You wrote
about a conference that was recently held in Atlanta that
was to make sure that CPCs are operating the most
effectively and these are modern times. Can you talk a
(35:45):
little bit about that. Yeah, there were so many interesting
workshops that they were about people who came together staffers
from crisis pregnancy centers around the country, UM, to sort
of learn new best practices for their industry and how
to stay competitive in this shifting landscape where you know,
there's billboards that's another era now people who are what
(36:08):
they call abortion minded or often what's the first thing
you do? You google? You know, abortion clinic in my area?
So how do you reach those people? Let's you know,
there was a workshop on Google AdWords and how to
utilize that to get people to your website, How to
write a compelling landing page for your website? How do
use Facebook? Um, you know, they're definitely trying to stay
(36:32):
on the cutting edge of how people are searching for
information around abortion and make sure they're meeting their target
person there right, Yeah, I remember that. Um when that
came out that if you type in abortion, probably one
of the top three results is going to be at
crisis pregnancy center because they did buy those like keywords. Um,
(36:53):
so there, they've gotten pretty good at that as well. Um,
as we as we wrap up, or what do you think?
Why is this worth talking about? And what can and
should be done? If anything? You know, it's interesting. Um,
I'm from California, and so I think my understanding of
(37:14):
the world and how things should be is is very
colored by the you know, being from the coast and
you know, relatively affluent state where you know you can
an abortion, you just go get one or you know.
And it wasn't until I moved to the South that
I realized how different things look in different parts of
the country. Um. You know the fact that there are
only nine abortion providers in Georgia and nine d crisis
(37:35):
pregnancy centers. That's not choice, that's not options. Um. And
so I don't know the curtailing of access to fair, unbiased,
truthful information about what options are available to you if
you find yourself pregnant and you're not sure that that's
the that's the direction you want to go. Uh, that's
(37:57):
paramount and those right especially in places like Georgia, are
being eroded. It's it's less and less easy to find
information that women need, truly need. Um. So Yeah, I mean,
I think with this coordinated effort that we're seeing in
states across the South and the Midwest passing near total
(38:20):
abortion bands, it might go up to the Supreme Court.
Who you know, ro versus weight is legitimately in danger um. Yeah,
this is a very real issue that's going to impact
millions of women. Yeah. And um, like we said in
our episode, on our recent episode on abortion, it's dangerous. Um.
(38:42):
There there have been many cases of women's lives being
endangered or and or um the fetus or child because
they didn't get accurate information. Are they thought they were
going to a hospital hospital, but they were going to
a Catholic hospital. Um. So it just seems trans parent,
transparency and knowing the facts when it comes to this
(39:03):
like you have said very dangerous thing in our country,
that is having a baby? What would you say to
look for those who are actually googling and we know
there's these tricks, and I know we kind of already
touched on a little bit of the things that might
be missing. What would you say for those who are
researching now UM and looking things up while they do
have access some of the key things that should look
(39:24):
out for to show what is legitimately a choice site
or choice center as opposed to one of these UM
Christian basin ors that's not outright Christian? What would you say?
There are two links that maybe we could put in
the show notes or something UM that are super helpful.
One of them is that map that Andrea schwarzen Gerber
(39:44):
put together of all the crisis pregnancy centers across the
United States. If there's if you've identified a clinic and
you're not sure, cross reference it with that map and
you'll be able to at least see what you might
be able to expect when you go to one of
these places. UM. There's also there's a National Abortion Providers
Center that lists UM affiliated abortion providers in each state,
(40:04):
And so if you want to make sure that you're
going to a place that is not, um, you know,
opposed to providing information and services around abortion. You can
UM look it up there. Awesome. Thank you so much
for joining us. Are there any projects that you're working
on that you want to shout out while you're here,
Things that you have done where people can find you,
anything like that. Um, people can find me on my
(40:26):
website maa craft dot com if they want to. I
don't know. I write on a wide range of subjects,
so it's not all it's not all reproductive health. Maybe
not shout out anything but awesome stuff. Nonetheless, we talked
about all kinds of things on this show, so go
check that out if you would like listeners, UM, thanks again,
(40:47):
and if you would like to email, as you can
or email is Stuff Media mom Stuff at i art
media dot com. It's new email, but all new emails
sent to the old email arrived to the new career.
We are professionals. UM. You can also find us on
Instagram at stuff I Never Told You and on Twitter
app Mom Stuff Podcast. Thanks to our super producer Andrew Howard,
(41:08):
Play to be, Thanks again to my crossing, and thanks
to you for listening. Thank you, Stuff I've never told
you the production of I Heart Radios how stuff works.
For more podcasts from I Heart Radio vi is at
the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows,
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.