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An Assessment of Crisis Pregnancy Center Websites: Helping or Hurting Women? Kelly Baker

An Assessment of Crisis Pregnancy Center Websites: Helping or Hurting Women? Kelly Baker. Within the Unites States there are approximately 6 million pregnancies a year, half of which are unintended 1 Of those that are unintended nearly half will end in abortion 1

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An Assessment of Crisis Pregnancy Center Websites: Helping or Hurting Women? Kelly Baker

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  1. An Assessment of Crisis Pregnancy Center Websites:Helping or Hurting Women?Kelly Baker

  2. Within the Unites States there are approximately 6 million pregnancies a year, half of which are unintended1 Of those that are unintended nearly half will end in abortion1 Within the state of Maryland, 131,720 of the 1,190,940 women of childbearing age become pregnant each year2 29% of these pregnancies end in abortion2 There is a significant lack of access to abortion care in the United States: 87% of counties do not have an abortion provider3 One-third of women ages 15-44 live in these counties3 One in four women travel more than 50 miles to a provider4 8% travel more than 100 miles4 There are approximately 2,000 clinics that perform the procedure3 However there are more than 4,000 Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs)3 Introduction 1-Finer & Henshaw, 2006 3-Finer & Henshaw, 2003 2-Guttmacher Institute, 2006 4-Henshaw & Finer, 2003

  3. CPCs are centers run by those who oppose abortion They define their mission as targeting those women at-risk for abortion in order to prevent them from choosing abortion1 CPCs also claim that those pregnant women coming to the centers actually looking for pregnancy support are essentially threatening this primary mission, which is to reach those women at-risk for abortion2 Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs) 1-National Abortion Federation, 2006 2- Jacobson, 2004

  4. Design appearance to look like a medical facility when they have no medical staff on hand1 Locate themselves in close proximity to clinics to lure in patients or for legitimacy2 They target a low-income population and women of different ethnicities3 They offer free services including pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, baby clothes, and other baby supplies4 Several give out misinformation on contraception, condom use, emergency contraception1,3 They use graphic pictures, videos, pamphlets, and posters as fear tactics1 They state an increased risk of breast cancer and claim Post-Abortion Stress is a result of abortion3 CPC Tactics 1-NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland, 2002 3-National Abortion Federation, 2006 2- Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report, 2002 4-Hauptman & Kaplan, 2001

  5. NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland (2002) 70% of centers gave misinformation about contraception and condom use In 65% of all CPCs visited, participants were provided with misleading information about the risks of the abortion procedure 29% of centers gave inaccurate information about the procedure itself National Abortion Federation (2006) Exposed the mission of CPCs Worked with Patient Partnership Project on personal experiences with CPCs Supported NARAL Study Showed how CPCs receive funding through both state and federal funding Prior Research

  6. Do Crisis Pregnancy Center websites present all options information to the public? Do Crisis Pregnancy Center websites provide accurate and unbiased information to the public? Do Crisis Pregnancy Center websites tailor their information to the demographics of the area they serve? Research Questions

  7. In researching CPCs in the U.S., it was found that several have websites that include much of this misinformation and these deceptive tactics Decided upon a sample of CPCs in the state of Maryland Representative sample demographically Divided by county Comprehensive search using the Verizon Yellow Pages, Google, Instant Messenger, links from other websites, etc. Found a total of 74 CPCs in the state of Maryland Close to the approximation of 65 made by NARAL in 20021 46 CPCs were linked to a website Three CPCs were linked to two websites Several websites were repeated A total of 33 websites were studied Methods 1-NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland, 2002

  8. CPCs were not found in Caroline or Somerset County CPC websites were also not found in Allegheny, Carroll, Kent, Queen Anne’s, Talbot, or Worcester Counties These 8 counties make up 8% of the population in the state of Maryland Limitation

  9. Designed an instrument to look at five major variables: Homepage Person, age, gender, race/ethnicity Name, slogan, interactivity Website Content Options counseling, parenting, adoption, abortion, abortion risks, post-abortion counseling, emergency contraception, religion, abstinence education, free services Language Medical language and descriptions of abortion procedures Statistics Condom use, abortion Extraneous Information Ran frequency analyses on all data Methods

  10. Do Crisis Pregnancy Center websites present all options information to the public? Looked at whether or not they offered options counseling, what these options were, abstinence education, safer sex education, post-abortion counseling, and other services Results support the NARAL and NAF study advertise options but do not discuss options in detail each option not fully supported do not make abortion referrals do not provide safer sex education Results

  11. Do Crisis Pregnancy Center websites provide accurate and unbiased information to the public? Looked at options, medical language and descriptions, risks and complications of abortion procedure, emergency contraception (EC), services, details, religion, and statistics Results support NARAL and NAF study biased options inaccurate and misleading information on the procedure including language, descriptions, risks, and complications almost all list EC as an abortifacient services supporting parenting alone several claim to be a medical facility lack of full reproductive health care and options cite religious passages inaccurate and misleading statistics on abortion procedures and condom effectiveness Results

  12. Do Crisis Pregnancy Center websites tailor their information to the demographics of the area they serve? Considered results by county Looked at person(s) on the homepage (by age, gender, and race/ethnicity), religion, and statistics some tailor their homepage to their demographics almost all mention religion statistics are not guided towards demographics Results

  13. Many Crisis Pregnancy Center websites state they present all options information to the public, but not equally These options are biased towards parenting Crisis Pregnancy Center websites provide inaccurate and biased information to the public. Crisis Pregnancy Center websites tailor some of their information to the demographics of the area they serve. Could be considered inconclusive and needs to be researched further Conclusions

  14. Not all counties had CPCs Not all counties had websites Not all websites were the same size Time Websites took an hour or so to go through Not all data was used and analyzed Not enough! Limitations

  15. Compare information within counties Look at remaining information not analyzed Look at website information in more detail Correlations among websites Further relationships within demographics Future Studies

  16. Questions?

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