In 1967, anti-choice activist Robert Pearson established the first crisis pregnancy center (CPC) in Hawaii in response to the state legislature's repeal of Hawaii's laws criminalizing abortion.  CPCs are anti-choice organizations, often posing as health clinics offering the full range of reproductive-health services, which target women considering abortion and often mislead, coerce, and intimidate them.  Pearson later went on to found and lead several anti-choice organizations.  When describing his work, Pearson 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 [do that]."  The Pearson Foundation, one of Pearson's CPCs, now has chapters in Honolulu, Pearl City, and Wailuku. 

Pearson also wrote a manual titled “How to Start and Operate Your Own Pro-Life Outreach Crisis Pregnancy Center.”  The manual outlines the deceptive tactics that many CPCs use today, including instructions to teach other anti-choice activists how to portray CPCs falsely as abortion providers and evade client questions on the phone.  Today, anti-choice groups estimate that there are between 2,500 and 4,000 CPCs nationwide.

Vitoria Lin and Cynthia Dailard, Crisis Pregnancy Centers Seek to Increase Political Clout, Secure Government Subsidy, Guttmacher Rep. on Pub. Pol'y, 2002; Legal Momentum, Federal Abstinence-Only Funding of Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs), (Nov. 19, 2008); National Abortion Federation, Crisis Pregnancy Centers: An Affront to Choice, (2006): Deb Berry, Choose Lies, Orlando Weekly, Apr. 17, 2003;The Pearson Foundation of Hawaii at http://pregnancyproblemcenter.org/contactus.aspx (last visited Dec. 9, 2009).