Anti-Abortion Pregnancy Centers Are Asking Patients About Religion, Past Abortions

NBC News’ story also included a look inside a CPC in Idaho. Because the manipulative tactics of CPCs, from Colorado to New York, are so universal, their reporting on the information-collecting tactics of Sage Women’s Center provides important insight into what’s going on behind closed doors across the country.

The watchdog group Campaign for Accountability—which is currently pressuring attorneys general in several states to investigate CPCs’ use of private medical data—obtained and shared client intake forms from the Idaho-based CPC with the outlet. The forms ask new patients a variety of non-medical, invasive questions about their religious faith, where they go to church, and even about other pregnancies and whether they’ve previously miscarried or had an abortion. “What decision would the father like you to make regarding the outcome of your pregnancy?” the form asks. “Who would support your decision if you decide to abort your pregnancy?”

NBC also reviewed internal forms that CPC volunteers and employees complete about visitors to evaluate if they’re “abortion vulnerable,” such as how the clients behaved during their visit, if they appeared sad, and if they can be scheduled for repeat ultrasound appointments—an obvious delay tactic—if they seem set on having an abortion.

“It’s not like any medical intake form I have ever seen,” Dr. Linda Prine, a family medicine provider and the founder of the Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline, told NBC of Sage’s intake forms. Dr. Jayme Trevino, the Darney-Landy fellow at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told the outlet that “the level of detail being asked” is “concerning.” On its website, Sage claims it adheres to HIPAA, a federal law that protects patient privacy. Of course, most CPCs aren’t actual health care providers, so there’s no obligation for them to follow these standards. In Sage’s case, NBC reports that a close read of its privacy policy shows it claims to “voluntarily” follow HIPAA as it’s not legally bound to do so. Would you entrust your private medical data—including past pregnancies and abortions—with a facility that believes that birth control and abortion cause cancer? 

Reproductive rights advocates have warned that CPCs, especially in states where abortion is banned, are “the surveillance center of the anti-abortion movement.” Susannah Baruch, executive director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics at Harvard Law School, told NBC most CPCs are part of larger anti-abortion networks like Heartbeat International, with which they share all data they collect, and “we don’t know exactly what they would do with the information.” As I’ve previously written, Heartbeat International’s Option Line chat program is used by CPCs across the country. Sage says they share “no personally identifiable information” with Heartbeat International, but I trust the word of an anti-abortion pregnancy center as far as I can throw it—even less in a climate where pregnancy increasingly goes hand-in-hand with criminal risk. 

Earlier this year, Texas reproductive justice organizer Maleeha Aziz told me about her experience at a CPC in the state over a decade ago. She felt physically trapped at the facility, where CPC workers had her sit in a room “through 30 minutes of torture watching this [anti-abortion] propaganda video,” and then proceeded to capitalize on every minute she spent at the facility to collect private information about her. “To this day, I don’t know what they used it for, if they still have it,” she said. “The whole time I was there, they kept talking to me, trying to make me feel like they’re my friends so I would tell more about myself—actual health care workers have never asked me the things they asked, like about my family, my life.” Other abortion seekers who were lured into CPCs say they were stalked and harassed by staff, sometimes for months. Some were forced to sign contracts pledging to not have an abortion before leaving the premises. 

In August, Equity Forward released a report revealing that in the two years since the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health ruling, state governments have poured close to $500 million into CPCs. The same states that have totally banned or severely restricted abortion have poured the most money into CPCs post-Dobbs. With this state funding, they’re reaching more and more people—and, consequently, collecting more and more sensitive data.