What is a Crisis Pregnancy Center (CPC)?

Anyone seeking health-care services should receive comprehensive, unbiased, medically and factually accurate information. Women facing unintended pregnancy deserve no less.

Unable to shut down legitimate public-health centers, the anti-choice movement built a national network of generally unlicensed, unregulated organizations posing as comprehensive health care clinics – so-called "crisis pregnancy centers."

While some CPCs may provide appropriate support and information to women facing unintended pregnancies, many do not. Reports indicate that many CPCs intentionally misinform and mislead women seeking pregnancy-related information with the intention of dissuading them from exercising their right to choose.

As part of their strategy to misinform and mislead women seeking abortion care, many CPCs make unsubstantiated claims that legal abortion and even birth control are harmful to women's health. Below are some common examples of the kinds of false and misleading information women receive at CPCs.

• Fiction: Abortion is a dangerous procedure that makes it more difficult for women to have children in the future and can even lead to sterility.
  Fact: Medical research shows that abortion does not increase the risk of major pregnancy complications during future pregnancies or deliveries.¹
  
  
• Fiction: Abortion causes breast cancer.
  Fact: In the last few decades, dozens of studies have found no link between abortion and breast cancer. The National Cancer Institute and experts from the scientific community have reviewed all existing information and concluded that abortion does not cause an increase in breast cancer risk.²
  
  
• Fiction: Abortion is psychologically damaging, causing "post-abortion syndrome."
  Fact: After extensive research on this issue, the American Psychological Association's Task Force on Mental Health and Abortion found that a woman who chooses abortion is at no greater risk for mental-health problems than if she chooses to carry an unintended pregnancy to term.³
  
  
• Fiction: Condoms are not effective at preventing pregnancy and disease.
  Fact: Condoms are 98 percent effective in preventing pregnancy when used consistently and correctly.⁴ Condoms are "highly effective" at preventing HIV and reducing the risk of contracting other STDs.⁵
  
  
• Fiction: The birth-control pill, emergency contraception, and other forms of hormonal contraception cause abortion.
  Fact: The medical establishment, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, defines pregnancy as the implantation of the fertilized egg in the uterine lining.⁶ Hormonal forms of birth control, including emergency contraception, work before implantation occurs, so they do not cause abortion.⁷

For more information, check out our fact sheet The Truth About Crisis Pregnancy Centers.

Citations

1 Carol J.R. Hogue et al., The Effects of Induced Abortion on Subsequent Reproduction, 4 Epidemiologic Reviews 66, 67, 88-9 (1982).

2 National Cancer Institute, Abortion, Miscarriage, and Breast Cancer Risk (Apr. 2003), at http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/abortion-miscarriage (last visited March 16, 2009).

3 Brenda Major, et al., Report of the APA Task Force on Mental Health and Abortion, Am. Psychological Assoc. (Aug. 12, 2008), at http://www.apa.org/releases/abortion-report.html (last visited Nov. 13, 2008).

4 J. Trussell, et al., Contraceptive Failure in the United States: An Update, Studies in Family Planning 52. (January/February 1990).

5 Condoms: STD protection plus effective birth control, The Mayo Clinic (May 1, 2007), at http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/condoms/HQ00463 (last visited March 5, 2009).

6 ACOG, Statement on Contraceptive Methods (July 1998); 45 C.F.R. § 46.202(f).

7 Robert A. Hatcher et al., Emergency Contraception: The Nation's Best Kept Secret 29-30 (1995); ACOG, Statement on Contraceptive Methods (July 1998).