Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

Jilly_in_VA

(9,984 posts)
Thu Dec 15, 2022, 07:51 PM Dec 2022

She Went Undercover to a Crisis Pregnancy Center. They Told Her Abortion Is Reversible.

In October, investigative reporter Olivia Raisner visited five anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers—clinics that often receive state funding, despite providing no medical services and pushing disinformation to dissuade pregnant people from choosing abortion—in Indiana. She entered each clinic armed with her pregnant friend’s urine, a button on her shirt that secretly doubled as a camera, and scheduled appointments. There, she declined to sign any paperwork that asked her not to record conversations to “make sure everything I did was legal,” Raisner told me in a phone interview. “The anti-abortion movement has been filming, not legally, for years now, and we don’t want to stoop to their level,” Raisner said.

On Thursday, Mayday Health posted a video capturing Raisner’s experiences at the CPCs. In one clip, after she turns in a positive pregnancy test and says she’s considering abortion, an employee immediately begins spewing a steady stream of easily disproven lies. The staffer warns Raisner, without any evidence, that “there’s been a lot of suicides” after abortion and that “it is a very common problem.” Ironically enough, research has shown that being denied an abortion negatively impacts someone’s mental health, and over 95 percent of people who have abortions don’t regret the decision. Nonetheless, the employee sternly claims that other mental health issues could arise, warning Raisner that having an abortion could even cause her to develop an eating disorder. She told Jezebel that several clinics said this.

The clinic worker featured in Mayday’s video specifically emphasized the (false) claim that if Raisner used medication abortion, she had the option to “reverse” the abortion through a special pill, via a dangerous, non-proven method called “abortion pill reversal.” Raisner told Jezebel that as medication abortion becomes more widely used, given its continued availability in all 50 states, anti-abortion activists are increasingly pushing this bogus, medically dangerous claim.

Even as Raisner had the facts going into the anti-abortion clinics, she said it still required significant effort to “keep my emotions and anger at bay” as clinic staff members lied to her face. “I knew that the longer I was able to stay in there, and really sell my story as a pregnant person, the more I would be able to record,” she explained. “I needed to show the interactions that are taking place countless times a day across the country, for all the pregnant people who go to these centers and don’t have the information.”

https://jezebel.com/she-went-undercover-to-a-crisis-pregnancy-center-they-1849900424

There is no way these outfits should be receiving any kind of outside funding. ANY kind.

4 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
She Went Undercover to a Crisis Pregnancy Center. They Told Her Abortion Is Reversible. (Original Post) Jilly_in_VA Dec 2022 OP
Those wacky Christian's and their "special" pills BOSSHOG Dec 2022 #1
I had an abortion many years ago. PoindexterOglethorpe Dec 2022 #2
Same here. ShazzieB Dec 2022 #3
The idiotic "facts" that people like her believe PoindexterOglethorpe Dec 2022 #4

BOSSHOG

(37,077 posts)
1. Those wacky Christian's and their "special" pills
Thu Dec 15, 2022, 10:42 PM
Dec 2022

Which begs the question, do christians have too much or too little time on their hands?

ShazzieB

(16,435 posts)
3. Same here.
Fri Dec 16, 2022, 01:35 AM
Dec 2022

See the second pic from the right in my signature line, below. No, that's not me, but those women speak for me and, it sounds like, for you.

I think the people who work in those fake "clinics" actually believe most of what they're saying. When someone who is already anti-abortion hears that stuff, confirmation bias kicks in, and it doesn't even occur to them to question or verify.

I once found myself in a conversation with a woman representing one of those groups (quite by accident; I did NOT seek it out), and when I tried to tell her abortion does not increase the risk of breast cancer, she flatly refused to believe me. In her mind, she "knew" the "facts," and there was no way she could believe she was wrong about any of it. I know a brick wall when I see one and noped on out of there at that point, but the experience showed me something about how those people think that I will never forget.

PoindexterOglethorpe

(25,865 posts)
4. The idiotic "facts" that people like her believe
Fri Dec 16, 2022, 02:39 AM
Dec 2022

are beyond comprehension.

I have never spoken about my abortion before this, but it really is long past time to do so. I'm currently 74 years old, long past potential childbearing or needing an abortion. I have one son, no daughters, so it would be easy to ignore the ongoing need to defend abortion rights.

Oh, and I have had similar conversations with women who think all abortions lead to bad consequences. None of those women have ever had an abortion themselves. They just buy into the idiotic propaganda of the anti-abortion people. As I often say, If you don't believe in abortion, don't have one.

Latest Discussions»Alliance Forums»Women's Rights & Issues»She Went Undercover to a ...