Pregnant Women's Experiences of Crisis Pregnancy Centers: When Abortion Stigmatization Succeeds and Fails

Abstract

There is broad consensus that abortion is stigmatized, but the role of interpersonal interaction in this process is underspecified. I examine interviews with 25 women in the United States who visited crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs)-antiabortion organizations that offer one-on-one "prolife counseling"-for how and when interactions matter for abortion stigmatization. I identify two primary ways CPC counselors stigmatized abortion and describe variation in their impact: counselors' efforts were "successful," were misrecognized as ideologically-neutral, or were resisted. The findings demonstrate the importance of women's current consideration of abortion and preexisting beliefs for understanding how interpersonal interactions contribute to abortion stigma.

Selecting an Abortion Clinic: The Role of Social Myths and Risk Perception in Seeking Abortion Care

“…Importantly, negative online reviews could also warn away potential patients from particular clinics that do not “feel right.” Sarah, a 26-year-old white college student, decided to avoid clinics where online reviews described feelings of unease or danger: “a lot of people did say they felt judged or they felt like, just not right.” Several respondents mentioned that through online reviews they became aware of what two women, Melissa and Emily, called “fake clinics”—crisis pregnancy centers that simulate abortion clinics but do not provide abortions and seek to dissuade abortion seekers (Kimport 2019). Lena’s and others’ remarks highlight how online reviews provide critical information about patients’ positive and negative experiences with specific facilities can steer them toward trustworthy sites and counter fears shaped by social myths about abortion clinics being dirty and unfriendly.…”

Abortion, mental health and epistemologies of psychological knowledge and ignorance

“…The invention of PAS legitimized the notion of clinical levels of post‐abortion distress, and thus validated the ‘need’ for the perpetuation of these programs, which, to date, have expanded alongside the increased number of CPCs themselves (there are an estimated 2300 CPCs in the U.S. today, most of which exist under the umbrella of one of two major evangelical Christian organizations (Kimport et al., 2018)). Outside of post‐abortion counseling services, which an estimated two third of centers offer (Kelly, 2014), it is common practice for CPC employees, who typically have neither clinical nor medical training (Goldberg, 2002), to inform pregnant people of the allegedly negative effects to mental health abortion incurs (Kimport, 2019), and to describe abortion as often, if not inevitably, leading to regret (Kimport et al., 2018). Further, a 2012 study in North Carolina found that the websites of 72% of CPCs link abortion to ‘post‐abortion stress,’ specifically (Bryant & Levi, 2012), and as Kelly (2014) notes, CPC employees routinely interpret PAS diagnostic criteria expansively, such that large numbers of individuals may be brought under its diagnostic scope.…”

“…Their practices have been described, in both research and media outlets, as ‘technically legal’ but unquestionably ‘unethical’ (e.g., Bryant & Swartz, 2018; Gold, 2020), embroiling CPCs, like conversion therapy, in contentious discourse surrounding the limits of professional free speech (Haupt, 2018). As CPCs intentionally mimic the appearance of abortion clinics, pregnant people who visit CPCs often do not realize that these organizations neither perform abortions, nor refer patients to clinics which do (Bryant & Swartz, 2018), and while visiting CPCs, patients have been offered illegitimate ‘treatments,’ such as the so‐called ‘abortion reversal pill’ (Gold, 2020) and coerced into watching video footage purportedly depicting surgical abortion procedures (Kimport, 2019). By presenting abortion as an inevitable precursor to stress, trauma and regret, CPCs reify the conservative religious belief that motherhood exists as a ‘natural’ state for women, and present psychological trauma as the ‘cost’ from deviating from this ‘natural’ state—obscuring, simultaneously, the unethical nature of the psychological tactics these centers deploy.…”

A Pregnancy Decision-Making Model: Psychological, Relational, and Cultural Factors Affecting Unintended Pregnancy

“…Misinformation about abortion may be particularly common, as researchers have found pervasive and pernicious myths about supposed dangers of accessing abortion (Bloomer et al, 2017; Rowlands, 2011). Falsehoods about abortion may be perpetuated by systemic policy (Berglas et al, 2017) or by individuals (e.g., at Crisis Pregnancy Centers; Kimport, 2019) and are prominent on the internet (Bryant et al, 2014). Myths about abortion have also been found to be related to anti-abortion attitudes (Kavanaugh et al, 2013).…”

“…Pregnant people may hear from family or friends about the ethics of abortion or read online forums where people argue it is immoral to raise a child in a single-parent or same-sex household (Zartler, 2014). They may visit a crisis pregnancy center and be persuaded that abortion is dangerous (Kimport, 2019) or receive accurate information about abortion from a health clinic. Social norms theory (Berkowitz, 2004) posits that people’s attitudes are, in part, based on what they believe to be the attitudes of the majority of relevant others.…”