Crisis Pregnancy Centers Don’t Have to Change Your Mind. They Just Have to Steal Your Time.

Imagine you discover you’re pregnant.

You know you don’t want to continue the pregnancy.

Maybe you’re terrified. Maybe you’re completely certain. Maybe you’re already trying to figure out how many weeks you are, whether abortion is legal where you live, how much it will cost, whether you can get time off work, whether someone will drive you, or whether medication can be mailed to you.

So you do what millions of people do when they need healthcare.

You search for it.

Abortion near me.

Pregnancy options.

Abortion clinic.

A reassuring website appears.

Pregnancy testing. Ultrasound. Options counseling. Confidential support.

Maybe there’s a woman in a white coat in the photograph. Maybe the building looks like a medical office. Maybe you’re invited to make an appointment.

So you call.

And this is where the problem begins.

Because you may not have found an abortion provider at all.

You may have found a crisis pregnancy center.

And the organization you just contacted may have absolutely no intention of providing you with an abortion—or referring you to someone who will.

That distinction should be impossible to miss.

Far too often, it isn’t.

We talk about crisis pregnancy centers as though their primary strategy is persuasion.

Sometimes it is.

But there is another weapon that receives far less attention:

Time.

Pregnancy is one of the few medical circumstances in which simply delaying a patient’s access can fundamentally change which options remain available.

Every day that passes advances the pregnancy.

Every appointment that turns out not to be what a woman thought it was costs time.

Every unnecessary return visit costs time.

Every false reassurance costs time.

Every misleading claim that makes her hesitate costs time.

Every day spent trying to figure out where the actual abortion provider is costs time.

And in America after Dobbs, time is not an abstraction.

Gestational restrictions, clinic shortages, mandatory requirements in some states, travel distances, work schedules, childcare, transportation, appointment availability and cost can already make obtaining an abortion extraordinarily difficult.

That’s why delay matters.

ACOG explicitly warns that crisis pregnancy centers can use misinformation and manipulation to delay women from finding abortion care until their pregnancies have progressed. The AMA Journal of Ethics has likewise identified delays and inequities in abortion access among the ethical problems associated with these centers.

This is what we need to understand:

A crisis pregnancy center does not necessarily have to change a woman’s mind about abortion to prevent her from having one.

Sometimes it just has to occupy enough of her time.

Crisis pregnancy centers prefer friendlier names now.

“Pregnancy resource center.”

“Pregnancy help center.”

“Women’s center.”

“Pregnancy care center.”

And yes, many provide things women genuinely need: free pregnancy tests, education, diapers, baby clothes and other material assistance. The U.S. Government Accountability Office describes CPCs as generally nonprofit, faith-based organizations that offer some free or low-cost services, encourage parenting and adoption, and do not perform or refer for abortion.

Providing diapers isn’t the problem.

Being Christian isn’t the problem.

Opposing abortion isn’t the problem.

The problem begins when an ideological organization presents itself in a way that a reasonable woman could mistake for comprehensive reproductive healthcare.

ACOG says these organizations can look like abortion clinics even though they do not provide abortion care. Its guidance warns specifically about advertising and websites that can make them appear to offer services they don’t actually provide.

And that isn’t some fringe concern invented by abortion-rights activists.

The American Medical Association’s policy calls for organizations offering crisis-pregnancy services to truthfully disclose what services they provide or refer for—including abortion, prenatal care, family planning and adoption—before services are provided, and to be transparent about funding and sponsorship.

Think about how modest that demand actually is.

Tell women what you are.

That’s it.

If your mission is to persuade women not to have abortions, say so.

If you will never provide an abortion, say so.

If you will never refer a woman for an abortion, say so.

Put it at the top of the website.

Put it in the advertisement.

Say it before she gives you her name, her phone number, her medical history or the date of her last menstrual period.

If telling women exactly what you do would make fewer of them walk through your door, perhaps the problem isn’t the disclosure.

Perhaps the problem is the business model.

Imagine searching:

Cancer treatment near me.

The first result looks like an oncology practice.

The website offers “cancer options counseling,” imaging and support. The waiting room looks medical. The staff asks about your symptoms and medical history.

Only later do you discover that the organization fundamentally opposes chemotherapy.

It doesn’t administer chemotherapy.

It doesn’t refer patients for chemotherapy.

Its mission is to convince cancer patients not to undergo chemotherapy.

We would not spend weeks debating whether patients should have read the website more carefully.

We would ask a much simpler question:

Why was a patient looking for medical treatment deliberately routed somewhere that had no intention of providing it?

Yet when the subject is abortion, suddenly deception is repackaged as “support.”

No.

Women do not surrender the right to informed consent because somebody disapproves of the healthcare they are seeking.

These aren’t a handful of church basements handing out diapers.

A 2025 American Journal of Public Health analysis identified 2,633 crisis pregnancy centers operating in the United States in 2024, including hundreds newly identified that year.

The federal government itself acknowledges that the exact number is difficult to determine. A March 2026 GAO report said stakeholder estimates ranged from approximately 2,400 to 2,800 centers in 2025.

They have also become remarkably sophisticated at meeting women exactly where women begin looking for care:

Online.

One nationwide study of Google advertising after Dobbs found crisis pregnancy centers accounted for 47% of abortion-related advertisements observed in the study, compared with 30% from abortion clinics.

Think about that for a moment.

A woman types something related to abortion into a search engine.

And nearly half of the ads captured by researchers came from organizations that do not provide abortions.

That’s not incidental.

That’s interception.

This part should terrify more people than it does.

A woman who believes she’s communicating with a healthcare provider may disclose some of the most sensitive information imaginable:

Her name.

Her phone number.

Her address.

Her pregnancy status.

The date of her last menstrual period.

Her sexual history.

Her partner.

Whether anyone knows she’s pregnant.

Whether she’s considering abortion.

Whether she’s afraid of someone.

Whether she’s planning to travel.

Whether she has already taken medication.

In an America where politicians are increasingly discussing abortion surveillance and states are searching for ways to investigate abortion providers, helpers and patients, reproductive information is not ordinary consumer data.

It can be extraordinarily sensitive information.

And HIPAA does not magically protect every piece of health-related information simply because it was collected in a place that looks medical.

Federal HIPAA protections apply to specific covered entities—such as most healthcare providers conducting covered transactions, health plans and healthcare clearinghouses—and their business associates. HHS itself emphasizes that not every organization holding health information falls under those rules.

Guttmacher has specifically raised concerns that anti-abortion centers may collect extensive personal information while having fewer privacy obligations when they are not legitimate or certified healthcare providers.

Before a woman gives any organization information about an unwanted pregnancy, she deserves to know:

Who are you?

Are you a healthcare provider?

Do you provide abortion care?

Will you refer me for abortion care?

What happens to the information I give you?

Those shouldn’t be trick questions.

You might assume these organizations exist entirely on church donations and private fundraising.

Not necessarily.

The GAO reported in 2026 that it could identify at least $34 million in direct HHS obligations to 16 crisis pregnancy centers between fiscal years 2018 and 2024, while cautioning that the real federal total could not be determined from available spending data and that its figure likely understated the amount.

State spending goes much further.

In 2025 alone, Guttmacher reported that lawmakers in 16 states introduced 29 bills to create or expand funding for anti-abortion centers, with 10 enacted. Texas allocated $90 million to its alternatives-to-abortion program, Florida $29.5 million, Missouri $12.4 million, and South Carolina $2.4 million.

So while actual reproductive healthcare providers are navigating closures, restrictions, criminal threats and funding battles, governments are directing millions of dollars toward organizations whose explicit model excludes abortion.

Again:

They have every right to oppose abortion.

They have every right to advocate for parenting.

They have every right to offer diapers, formula, parenting classes, adoption information and financial support.

But when public money enters the equation, taxpayers have every right to ask whether these organizations are medically transparent, whether the information they provide is evidence-based, how patient information is protected, and whether women clearly understand what services they do not provide before they walk through the door.

That isn’t persecution.

That’s accountability.

This is the part we understand intimately at Her Safe Harbor.

When a woman calls us, we don’t assume she is confused.

We don’t assume she hasn’t thought about it.

We don’t assume motherhood is the answer to every pregnancy.

We don’t view uncertainty as an opportunity to impose our beliefs.

We listen.

Sometimes she’s certain.

Sometimes she’s scared.

Sometimes she’s crying.

Sometimes she’s matter-of-fact.

Sometimes she’s already a mother and knows exactly what another pregnancy would mean for her family.

Sometimes nobody in her life can know.

Sometimes she’s calling from a state where politicians have deliberately made accessing care frightening and difficult.

But there is one thing she should never have to wonder when she reaches us:

Are these people actually going to help me get the healthcare I called for?

Yes.

Because healthcare begins with honesty.

There is a strange paternalism underneath the crisis pregnancy center model.

It assumes that when a woman says, “I want an abortion,” she hasn’t really earned the right to have that statement taken seriously yet.

First she must hear the argument.

First she must see the ultrasound.

First she must hear what someone else believes.

First she must reconsider.

First she must prove that she understands.

First she must be given another chance to make the decision somebody else wants her to make.

Why?

When an adult patient declines chemotherapy, we don’t send her to a secret pro-chemotherapy organization before accepting her decision.

When a man asks for a vasectomy, we don’t route him through an organization whose mission is to convince him that fatherhood is his moral obligation.

When someone seeks contraception, they should not have to accidentally wander through an organization ideologically committed to preventing them from obtaining it.

Autonomy doesn’t mean making the decision someone else thinks is correct.

Autonomy means the decision belongs to the patient.

Let them exist.

Let them advocate.

Let them preach.

Let them persuade anyone who knowingly chooses to walk through their doors.

But make them tell women exactly what they are.

No camouflage.

No ambiguity.

No strategically vague advertising.

No presenting ideological counseling as neutral medical counseling.

No allowing a woman searching for an abortion provider to believe she has found one when she hasn’t.

No hiding the ball until after she has surrendered intimate information and precious time.

If the mission is righteous enough to impose on a woman’s pregnancy, it should be righteous enough to put in bold letters on the front door:

WE DO NOT PROVIDE OR REFER FOR ABORTIONS.

Anything less tells us something important.

Because if women would not voluntarily come through your doors after being told exactly what you do, then your success does not demonstrate the power of your message.

It demonstrates the power of the deception.

And when the clock is running on a pregnancy, deception doesn’t merely waste an afternoon.

It can change what choices remain.

They don’t have to change her mind.

They just have to steal enough of her time.

If you are pregnant and considering abortion, you deserve accurate information, straightforward answers and healthcare without judgment.

Her Safe Harbor provides private, clinician-guided reproductive healthcare and support to women who need us.

24/7. Just a phone call away.
302-660-1273
HerSafeHarbor.com

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