Anti-Abortion Pregnancy Centers Are Collecting Troves of Data That Could Be Weaponized Against Women
(Published right before the Roe reversal)
The first alarm bell went off in Ashley’s head when no one at the Prestonwood Pregnancy Center was wearing a mask. No one was in scrubs, no one’s hair was tied up, and every staffer was wearing a visible cross. “I should have noticed all the red flags,” says Ashley, 28, whom TIME is identifying by her first name to protect her privacy. But it wasn’t until she sat down for a mandated counseling session in the brick building in a Dallas suburb that she realized what kind of a facility it was.
Ashley had Googled where she could confirm a positive pregnancy test and get an abortion. One of the first results had been a website called Choices Dallas offering “pre-screening abortion consultations.” That had led her to Prestonwood, one of more than 2,500 anti-abortion centers, sometimes known as “crisis pregnancy centers,” that have exploded across the U.S. in the past two decades, fueled by an increasingly powerful anti-abortion movement. This sprawling network of unregulated, faith-based nonprofits now outnumbers abortion clinics 3 to 1.
Many of the millions of women who visit these pregnancy centers stumble into them by accident, as Ashley did. The centers often present themselves as medical facilities and mirror abortion clinics’ logos, using names like Your Choice and Women’s Health Clinic. Prestonwood’s—a P at the center of three concentric circles—looks very similar, for instance, to that of Planned Parenthood. Pregnancy centers’ billboards—Pregnant? Scared? Need help?—blanket highways, and their well-funded parent organizations offer trainings in Google Ads, search-engine optimization, and social marketing to ensure they appear atop search results. Their goal is to dissuade women from having abortions by promoting parenting and adoption, and offering baby supplies and counseling. But researchers and doctors have found they also provide misinformation about abortion. More than half a dozen women who sought care at such centers told TIME that staff used a variety of scare tactics, including gory videos.
Ashley had gone to Prestonwood in hopes of getting an ultrasound and information about abortion. She has a medical condition that puts her at high risk of an ectopic pregnancy, in which a fertilized egg implants outside the uterus. An egg cannot survive the condition, which can also threaten the life of the pregnant person. But Ashley says the Prestonwood counselor told her, falsely, that she could carry an ectopic pregnancy to term if she was “careful,” and urged her to delay a decision to terminate the pregnancy.
(snip)
Pregnancy centers, many of which are affiliated with national anti-abortion advocacy groups, including Care Net and Heartbeat International, collect personal data from the millions of women they interact with every year in person, by telephone, and through online chats. This data includes sexual and reproductive histories, test results, ultrasound photos, and information shared during consultations, parenting classes, or counseling sessions, which some pregnancy centers require before they provide aid, like diapers. Because most centers are not licensed medical clinics and offer services for free, privacy lawyers tell TIME that they are not legally bound by federal health data privacy laws.
More..
https://time.com/6189528/anti-abortion-pregnancy-centers-collect-data-investigation/
