We’re tracking a few new Unregulated Pregnancy Clinic (UPC) industry developments:
- Reproductive Health and Freedom Watch’s new research on state taxpayer funding of UPCs was featured in Oklahoma Watch: “States that have banned abortions or put restrictions on them since the Dobbs decision have boosted funding to crisis pregnancy centers. A report from Reproductive Health and Freedom Watch found at least 21 states, including Oklahoma, have funded crisis pregnancy centers using taxpayer money since 2021. Its national analysis of nonprofit tax filings found a 30% boost in overall revenue for the centers, from $1 billion in 2019 to $1.4 billion in 2022.”
- Ms. Magazine featured an article by Reproductive Health and Freedom Watch’s Jenifer McKenna, shedding light on how UPCs gather sensitive health data from pregnant clients who may unknowingly forfeit the legal data protections they would receive in a regulated medical setting. The piece also reveals the anti-abortion movement’s efforts to thwart federal data privacy standards designed to safeguard personal health information. “Unregulated pregnancy clinics nationwide are deceiving pregnant women and teens into providing sensitive health information—date of last menstrual period, use of birth control, pregnancy history and outcomes, drug and alcohol use and interest in abortion—but operate under no legal requirement to protect client confidentiality and no regulatory authority that would govern their handling of client data. This means UPCs are essentially free to share the sensitive information they are collecting from pregnant people as they wish—information that could be weaponized in pregnancy- or abortion-related investigations post-Roe.”
- A recent exposé of the anti-abortion pregnancy clinic network “Obria Medical Clinics” revealed that the group, which has led the UPC industry in “medicalizing” in order to “become a nationwide competitor to Planned Parenthood” has ousted its CEO, a former hospital administrator, and replaced her with a man with no health care experience. The former CEO, Dawn Hughes, is now blowing the whistle on Obria, saying ”They’re misrepresenting themselves as medical clinics, but they really are not medical clinics.” Hughes says “the movement tried to come up with something to make themselves more legitimate” and claims she was ousted for trying to turn Obria into an actual women’s health care organization that would be transparent about not providing abortion. But, according to Hughes, “They don’t want a pregnant woman who is looking for help[…]Their whole goal is to get you to say: ‘I’m going to keep the baby.’… They are zealots.”The piece exposes the UPC “medicalizing” tactic, led by Obria, which has become widespread in the industry. More and more unregulated pregnancy clinics around the country are presenting themselves as medical – and securing ever-increasing troves of taxpayer funding in states banning abortion – while operating free of any of the oversight, regulatory, health and safety, or health data privacy standards governing actual medical businesses.
- While governor, Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz signed a law slashing state funding for unregulated pregnancy clinics.