Abstract
Crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) attempt to dissuade pregnant people from considering
abortion, often using misinformation and unethical practices. While mimicking health
care clinics, CPCs provide biased, limited, and inaccurate health information, including
incomplete pregnancy options counseling and unscientific sexual and reproductive health
information. The centers do not provide or refer for abortion or contraception but
often advertise in ways that give the appearance that they do provide these services
without disclosing the biased nature and marked limitations of their services. Although
individuals working in CPCs in the United States have First Amendment rights to free
speech, their provision of misinformation might be harmful to young people and adults.
The Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine and North American Society for Pediatric
and Adolescent Gynecology support the following positions: (1) CPCs pose risk by failing
to adhere to medical and ethical practice standards; (2) governments should only support
health programs that provide accurate, comprehensive information; (3) CPCs and individuals
who provide CPC services should be held to established standards of ethics and medical
care; (4) schools should not outsource sexual education to CPCs or other entities
that do not provide accurate and complete health information; (5) search engines and
digital platforms should enforce policies against misleading advertising by CPCs;
and (6) health professionals should educate themselves, and young people about CPCs
and help young people identify safe, quality sources of sexual and reproductive health
information and care.
Key Words
To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
Purchase one-time access:
Academic & Personal: 24 hour online accessCorporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online accessOne-time access price info
- For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal'
- For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'
Subscribe:
Subscribe to Journal of Pediatric and Adolescent GynecologyAlready a print subscriber? Claim online access
Already an online subscriber? Sign in
Register: Create an account
Institutional Access: Sign in to ScienceDirect
References
- Abstinence-only-until-marriage policies and programs: an updated position paper of the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine.J Adolesc Health. 2017; 61: 400
- Abstinence-only-until-marriage: an updated review of US policies and programs and their impact.J Adolesc Health. 2017; 61: 273
- Crisis pregnancy centers seek to increase political clout, secure government subsidy.Guttmacher Rep Public Policy. 2002; 5: 4
- Have crisis pregnancy centers finally met their match: California’s Reproductive Fact Act.Northwest J Law Soc Policy. 2017; 12: 78
- Sexual and reproductive health services and related health information on pregnancy resource center websites: a statewide content analysis.Womens Health Issues. 2018; 28: 14
- The public health risks of crisis pregnancy centers.Perspect Sex Reprod Health. 2012; 44: 201
- Information about sexual health on crisis pregnancy center web sites: accurate for adolescents?.J Pediatr Adolesc Gynecol. 2016; 29: 22
- Crisis pregnancy centers, poverty, and the expanding frontiers of American abortion politics.Politics Policy. 2013; 41: 985
- Crisis pregnancy center map.(Available:)https://crisispregnancycentermap.comDate accessed: September 10, 2018
- In the name of the mother: renegotiating conservative women’s authority in the crisis pregnancy center movement.Signs. 2012; 38: 203
- The Making of Pro-life Activists: How Social Movement Mobilization Works.University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL2008
- What women seek from a pregnancy resource center.Contraception. 2016; 94: 168
- Informed decision making and abortion: crisis pregnancy centers, informed consent, and the First Amendment.J Law Med Ethics. 2015; 43: 51
- United States House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce: April 12, 2019 Letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar.(Available:)
- At “crisis pregnancy centers,” critics say, ideology trumps evidence.JAMA. 2018; 320: 425
- Crisis pregnancy center websites: information, misinformation and disinformation.Contraception. 2014; 90: 601
- Why crisis pregnancy centers are legal but unethical.AMA J Ethics. 2018; 20: 267
- Abortion misinformation from crisis pregnancy centers in North Carolina.Contraception. 2012; 86: 752
- Contraceptive information on pregnancy resource center websites: a statewide content analysis.Contraception. 2018; 98: 158
- The spread of “post abortion syndrome” as social diagnosis.Soc Sci Med. 2014; 102: 18
- Counseling the adolescent about pregnancy options.Pediatrics. 1998; 101: 938
- Providing quality family planning services.MMWR Recomm Rep. 2014; 63: 1
- National Academies of Sciences Engineering, and Medicine: The safety and quality of abortion care in the United States. National Academies Press, Washington, DC2018
- Continuing pregnancy after mifepristone and “reversal” of first-trimester medical abortion: a systematic review.Contraception. 2015; 92: 206
- American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists: Facts are important: medication abortion “reversal” is not supported by science.(Available:)https://www.acog.org/-/media/Departments/Government-Relations-and-Outreach/FactsAreImportantMedicationAbortionReversal.ashxDate accessed: February 2, 2018
Article info
Publication history
Published online: October 28, 2019
Footnotes
Conflict of Interest Statement: Nothing to disclose.
Disclosures: All authors contributed to the development, writing, and editing of this manuscript.
Identification
Copyright
© 2019 North American Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology. Published by Elsevier Inc.
