Anti-Abortion Clinics Are Lying to You
This week, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision in favor of crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs), faith-based organizations that often present themselves as abortion providers, but instead convince women seeking abortions to change their minds. The Court ruled that these clinics are not required to provide women with any actual information about abortion–which pro-choice groups say is deceptive.
Here, one ex-CPC worker, Amanda (who requested we only use her first name for her family's privacy), shares the inside story of how these centers target and manipulate the women who end up there.
I was volunteering at a fake women's health center in Georgia when a call came in that still sticks with me today: The girl on the other end of the line was 9 years old–she had been raped and was worried she was pregnant. Trying to get her to come into the clinic so we could convince her to have the baby when she herself was just a kid didn't feel right.
But that's exactly what I was supposed to do.
When I started at the clinic, I had one day of training before I was put on the hotline–the number women would call to ask questions or schedule an appointment. I was taught how to use the phone and instructed to say whatever the person calling wanted to hear in order to get them to come into the clinic, so we could convince her to continue with her pregnancy. We were told we had the support of the organization to do whatever was needed. There was a lot of pro-life cheerleading that what we were doing was saving babies from being killed.
Back then, I was very much a fervent part of the pro-life movement. The only social justice club at my Catholic high school was a pro-life club, so I grew up believing that abortion was one of the greatest social injustices of our time and that my job, as a Catholic, was to fight against it-there were innocents being harmed.
All the messages I had heard were that women who have abortions regret it, and they have major trauma and mental health issues afterwards. I believed that abortion was a dangerous, unsafe procedure, and that by having one, women were putting their lives at risk. I really thought by volunteering at a CPC, I was helping save the lives of pregnant women and babies. Abortion didn't feel like something real people did. It was something fictional villains did.
Women would call in and say, "I think I'm going to get an abortion," while others spoke in more coded language, saying things like, "I need to not be pregnant anymore" or "I need this to be over." I would always repeat the phrases we were trained to say: "Everything will be okay if you just come in" or "Come in and we'll talk about all of your options."
If the caller was worried about money, I was coached to tell them we'd help out financially. If they were worried about finishing school, I'd tell them we could help with that, too. The central message was that the organization could solve all of their problems. So have the baby.
On one of the other calls I specifically remember, a pregnant woman told me that she was afraid that if her family found out they would make her go back to her home country and get married. All she wanted was to finish school. I told her to come in for an appointment and that no one would send her out of the country. I felt really good about making an appointment for her because I thought the organization I worked for would solve all of her problems. I still wonder what happened to her.
My stint at the clinic only lasted three months because I was there in a volunteer capacity, but admittedly, it took years for my outlook to change and for me to understand what I had been a part of. I started researching pregnancy and conception and realized that my faith-based sex ed had a lot of misinformation in it. I also became friends with people who had abortions and saw that they are good, moral, smart people–not villains.
I'm married now and have been through two really hard pregnancies myself. What got me through that was the real desire to be a mom and have children. I can't imagine being a pregnant woman and being forced to carry a baby I didn't want to have. Now I understand that abortion isn't as black and white as it was painted to me then.
I think back now to the women who called me on the hotline, and it's terrible–they were so scared. I think about how they must have felt so alone that the only person they had to call to admit they were pregnant is a stranger on the phone, as opposed to their mom, or a best friend, or a partner. All they wanted was someone to trust, and instead, they got me–someone telling them to make an appointment with people who weren't being honest and weren't giving them the full scope of information. I didn't know what I didn't know.
I regret that, and I think I did some real harm when I thought I was doing some real good. I own that. But I also realize that I was a sheltered, naive person just doing what I thought was right by listening to people that I trusted.
I know better now. And I know that, I, too was duped.
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