It Could Happen Here - Crisis Pregnancy Centers are Evil

Episode Date: May 12, 2022

We talk to Carina Domingez, a reproductive health expert, about the predatory fake clinics known as crisis pregnancy centers and how they've infiltrated public health spaces to trick and terrorize people out of abortions and contraceptives. https://www.plancpills.org/https://crisispregnancycentermap.com/http://Bedsider.orgSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. On Thanksgiving Day 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami? Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jacqueline Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit.

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This is It Could Happen Here. This is It Could Happen Here, that's right. And you're Robert Evans. We also have Shereen Lana Yunus and Christopher Wong with us. Christopher? Hi, yeah, I guess I'm sort of running the show today, even though Robert has done the intro, question mark. Always with a question mark.

That's how the pros do it. You can tell. Allegedly. Speaking of professionals, we have Karina Dominguez with us who is in fact actually a professional and has spent eight years working in reproductive health issues.

Karina, welcome to the show and thank you for joining us. Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's lovely to have you on. Karina, what's going on? How are things? Things are okay, I think I can say. That doesn't seem true. But they're okay. But they're okay. Yeah. Okay. Cool. I pulled a guy out of a crash truck once.

And as I was trying to staunch the bleeding from a cut in his hand, I asked how he was. And he said, okay. So I'm guessing it's that kind of okay. You nailed it. Yeah. Karina, do you want to tell us a little bit about your background and the work that you do and, you know, why we desperately wanted to have you on the show? Yeah, I would love to. So again, my name is Karina Dominguez. I am from Chicago, born and raised. I've worked in reproductive health for about eight years, but really what I consider about 15 years or so. I have experience in working in the community in different capacities. I love reproductive health. I consider myself a

reproductive health nerd. And it all started when I was a teenager growing up in Chicago, where just in the city life, you see a lot of things that don't really sit well with you. I knew a lot of young girls who were getting pregnant at young ages, experiencing trauma and specifically sexual trauma and not knowing who to go to or where to go. So these were mostly young girls of color who I cared for a lot. And I immediately knew that I wanted to do more activism and that I needed to do more activism. And the way my activism looks is through my education. So today I have a master's in public health and I also have a bachelor's in public health. And with that education, I've been able to provide sexual and reproductive health counseling. I

practiced as a full spectrum doula where I've provided abortion care for people and also provided birthing care for people as well. I led a pregnant and parenting program at a nonprofit for youth experiencing homelessness. And right now I currently manage a sexual and reproductive health grant where we provide resources to treatment centers in the LA area to integrate sexual and reproductive health for patients and substance use disorder treatment. Wow. Cool. So we are slacking that was yeah yeah i think the thing that uh made us want to chat with you we were having a conversation show when the news first dropped that uh the supreme court was yeeting roe v. Wade into the sun.

There were a couple of different news agencies that did like, you know, while talking about what options were going to remain for people that would bring up crisis pregnancy centers, which are shady as hell as I'm sure we're about to talk about. But yeah, so that's kind of why we brought you in, what we brought you on initially to talk about. I wonder, do you want to kind of introduce folks to what those are? Because the gist of it is, if you like Google, how do I find out if I'm pregnant or I'm pregnant and I need help? There's a good chance old Google will take you to one of these places.

And they are, shall we say, not what they seem to be. Yes, I think we can exactly say that. And I am just going to say it in the most direct way I possibly could. A crisis pregnancy center is essentially a fake medical facility that preys on vulnerable people, specifically people who can become pregnant. So yeah, we can use the term fake medical clinic. I, for the purpose just of using the most common term crisis pregnancy center, I'm going to stick to using that term. But yes, there are a lot of concerns about this and I'm sure our friend Google will pop some

up for us really quick. So crisis pregnancy centers usually have names like Women's Pregnancy Center or Women's Health Center, something health center. And it's a very misleading advertisement. So they are anti-abortion facilities that manipulate people into having a full term pregnancy. So these places are usually religious oriented. They have a religious agenda and it's not patient led. religious oriented. They have a religious agenda and it's not patient led. So some of these larger religious based organizations that fund these, what we think are smaller, tiny clinics are agencies or organizations like Care Net, Heartbeat International, National Institute of Family and Life, Birthright International, and Rama International. So a lot of times you might

think you're going to this small little tiny clinic, or maybe it's even like a community medical mobile unit. And it turns out they're backed by big money and bigger agencies. So they typically will implant themselves in communities of color near college campuses and low income neighborhoods. So near college campuses and low income neighborhoods. So what is that saying? That's saying that this is a woman's issue. This is a trans issue. This is an LGBTQIA issue. This is a BIPOC issue, Black, Indigenous, people of color. And it's simply just an issue for everyone. Yeah. And it's so one of the things that's kind of messy about these places is that if you look at like investigations and how they work, you'll run into a number of stories of women who are like, hey, I actually like always intended to go through with my pregnancy.

I just needed to like know that number one, know that I was pregnant. I needed to test or something. And these people advertised they would provide that for free or they advertised that they were providing stuff like diapers, you know, basic kind of supplies formula for free. that they were providing stuff like diapers, you know, basic kind of supplies formula for free. And some of them do, most of them do to some extent, but nearly all of them have some sort of like, and this is outside of kind of the abortion aspect,

access of it, have some sort of fucked up hoops you have to jump through in order to actually get access to any of that stuff. Absolutely, yeah. I'm really glad that you brought up like the diaper point. I think that is a really essential thing. Because they don't provide those comprehensive services. And sometimes, you know, they might even say on the outside, like HIV testing, STI testing, HIV testing. And they're simply not evidence-based practices.

So what I mean by an evidence-based practice is something like condom use. We know very well at this day and age that condoms are essential to prevent STIs and HIV transmission. So a lot of these clinics, they might even say like condoms don't decrease your chances of STIs. They don't really matter. They're not really doing anything. And that is a really big piece of information that we need to know as the average person, because that means we have a lot of young people going to these clinics and having even their foundational sexual health education at these facilities. So this is a really, really important thing to take note of. And I would say that, you know, a lot of people, even in my life that have gone to crisis pregnancy centers by accident are, you know, being told that they can do STI testing, HIV testing,

and even birth control. And then as soon as you go there, you realize that's not what's happening. Usually it's going to be a lot of pregnancy related services like ultrasounds and pregnancy tests, which we know if you're an actual clinic, those aren't the only things that someone would need for essential healthcare. But I would say even more like going into the manipulation and the gaslighting that they do within these facilities, which in my eyes is medical violence, they provide even mandatory ultrasounds, make someone sit there to look at the ultrasound. They make fearful videos of misleading information about what abortions are,

and sometimes even have someone who's not a medical provider showing what an abortion is in their eyes. And the video may be of a baby whose limbs are being ripped apart. Even giving information like abortions can lead to breast cancer, or if you have abortion, you'll never be able to have a child, and this is your one and only opportunity. And sometimes even going further, they are sneaky in what they do because they might even have programs that'll say parent program or youth sexual health program. And even with that, they're giving religious based agendas and they are telling people misinformation about sexual health. And even so might even talk about very heterosexual sex, marriage, all of the above. So there is a very specific agenda that is going on here.

And we know, too, that a lot of these agencies can be really sneaky with what they're doing because they may even deny that they are a crisis pregnancy center. And even further, if you go on to their website, they might not even have any language that they're religious based or that they are not providing comprehensive services so there are a lot of different tactics that are you know within the the manipulate manipulative strategies that they use yeah one of the things i've heard a lot about is like basically like not not literally physically forcing but like terrorizing people into signing like fake legal documents saying they won't get an abortion which like really like every description i've heard about that is just like this is just terrorism like that's

absolutely um yeah and i i find that to be really interesting i've never heard of that happening but just because i haven't specifically heard of that does not mean it's not happening um and i think that you know they're they're not all made the same um they all function differently and i think that's also what is really confusing about them because they're not consistently all doing the same thing. There are still other facilities that they might do STI testing. They might do HIV testing. And so to hear that is not shocking to me and the manipulative tactics that they are

using for people. And yeah, I mean, HIPAA goes out the door, you know, any legal backing goes out the door with these facilities because they are not based on providing patient led services in the first place. Maybe this is an ignorant, ignorant train of thought, but if they're providing all of these like free ish services or like whatever to these people that are desperate and it sounds like a lot of them are like privately funded by these organizations in the shadows like what how do they benefit like where like what is their other than like imposing religion on other people but

like like financially and like i'm confused where how they're still like able to function yes they function very well and without a problem and as i mentioned there's you know five larger organizations that are funding a lot of these cpcs but they are also um this is to be noted they are on the c CDC website. They are on the CDC directory as places that provide essential services. So I think that also goes to speak to the confusion around CPCs. And I'm just going to go out on a limb and say, I'm going to give the CDC benefit of the doubt, although they do not deserve that, and say that they themselves may not recognize what these agencies are doing. And so I think that's where the awareness around the actual function of the CPCs and how they even exist in the first place needs to be shut down and awareness needs to be brought about these places.

And we know that 13 of them are funded by their states. So they are getting direct government money to be able to function. And then on top of that, also functioning with the backing of those larger organizations. Wow. Are they getting federal funding too like i have some vague memories of like bush administration programs that were funding just since trevor right i mean if i'm not mistaken trump pushed a bunch of federal funds towards these facilities yeah yes yeah i wonder okay sorry go no. Go ahead. I was just I was wondering, like, I wonder if there's a like one or two things you need to qualify as like a what's what? How did you put it on the website? CDC?

Like they offer like services. Like maybe it's like, oh, this place has an ultrasound. These are like this is why this is on. You know what i mean like i wonder if they just like pick and choose the bare minimum of things to like qualify to be um considered among like people that offer like full-fledged care but i don't know it's all a scam i don't yeah and i mean i think that also is just a really um i like that you bring that up because I think that would be a really ignorant perspective from the CDC to think that a place that gives a pregnancy test or an ultrasound right away is not necessarily your average healthcare setting. setting. When someone is going into an appointment, typically, you know, they're not getting an ultrasound right away. Typically, your average person who might think they're pregnant and is

going into a medical facility is going to do a pregnancy test, sure. But they're not just going to immediately the first 20 minutes you're there do an ultrasound. And especially knowing our health care system and the United States, you know, that might require referrals and another facility to get that done. And, you know, that depends on what your insurance is and what you can pay for and et cetera, et cetera. But I think it's a really big red flag to just have a facility that has pregnancy tests and ultrasounds. That to me is, you know, if I see on a website that those are the only two services that a health care clinic is claiming to provide, I'm running away and I'm not going there because that's very odd. going there because that's very odd well and it's very manipulative because it's it's one of those things one of the ways in which you can tell is something healthcare related shady as fuck is does it take advantage of the fact that very basic things that you need are extremely expensive um and like ultrasounds pregnancy tests this can all be like std tests you know can all be really

really pricey um and it's just so like it's fucked up that this is kind of how they're funneling religious dollars towards taking advantage of the fact that a lot of people like legitimately some people who use these facilities i don't know what else to tell them because it's like well we don't provide people with a lot of options in this country everywhere, you know, for some of these services. Yeah. Totally.

Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by I Heart and Sonorum, an anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you.

Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how Tex Elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists

to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong though, I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com.

Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the

chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Black Lit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Black Lit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The 2025 iHeart Podcast Awards are coming.

This is the chance to nominate your podcast for the industry's biggest award. Submit your podcast for nomination now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. But hurry, submissions close on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. and I do want to go into some of the people doing work and I want to really highlight what they're doing um so I want to give the utmost credit to two people um who I do not

know personally but would definitely love to um Dr. Andrea Swartzenrubber and Dr. Danielle Lambert, they're both associate professors at the School of Public Health at University of Georgia. And they're both co-founders of the CPC maps, which originated in 2018. So yes, there's a brilliant map where you can search these CPCs that are close to you. And in my eyes, this map is truly a piece of gold because I myself have found ones that are in my area and was very beneficial when I was working with clients myself directly and would refer people to different services. So this is a really great tool for healthcare professionals and social service workers,

et cetera, to refer to. And I can't even explain how grateful I am to know that there's ongoing research about the distraught impact of these clinics and the distraught impact they have on our healthcare system and the ability to find an abortion provider. So again, I hope that every service provider can find this map and use this map and really spread awareness around this. So what I want to highlight and what these two doctors have found is that just to give some more context, every single state has multiple CPCs, multiple, not just one, not two, multiple. There are 2,500 CPCs throughout the United States. And that is obviously a much larger number than the health departments in the United

States. And, you know, as I mentioned, we know the CDC directory utilizes CPCs on their website. And again, 13 states are funded or are funding CPCs. So their advertisements are going far and wide. And to even go further in the state of California, the California Women's Law Center says that there are 20% more CPCs than there are abortion clinics. So I think in this time, yeah, yeah, we should be scared. That's a really concerning statistic. And especially looking at how we are going to be and already are a haven state. We are going to be a haven state for all the states around us and for people throughout the United States. So what is that saying when

we are a haven state, yet we are still competing with our local anti-abortion strategies ourselves? We are still putting up a fight as a haven state. And I think that is so concerning. And even further, just to give some more statistics, we know that 58% of the clinics that CPCs that did not offer STI testing also will not refer out. We know that only 8% offer HIV testing. we know that only 8% offer HIV testing. And 92% that did not offer HIV testing also did not refer out. So just to summarize those numbers for you, what that data is telling me is that these clinics are not accounting for the health of the pregnant person, nor are they accounting for the health of the fetus if that pregnancy goes full term. And yeah, I mean, I have even, you know, more stats as you know, your reproductive health nerd of one of my favorite research institutes called the Gutmacher Institute, and they are phenomenal and have really great

data. And if you haven't checked out their website, you definitely should. But since we're on the bandwagon of talking about religious-based affiliations, we know that 17% of abortion patients are, oh, sorry. Okay. 17% of abortion patients identified themselves as mainline Protestant, 13% as evangelical Protestant, and 24% as Catholic. 38% have no religious affiliation, and the remaining 8% reported a different religious affiliation. So let's summarize that. Religiously affiliated people are still seeking abortions too. Would you look at that? Ignorance is so bliss. We know that abortions are affecting people who are living in poverty and who are low income. So we know 75%

of people that are seeking abortions are either living in poverty or are low income. And fortunately, throughout the past, we know that Medicaid has been a really big Fortunately, you know, throughout the past, we know that Medicaid has been a really big funder of abortion care. And especially we can say that in California, too, that about 24 percent of abortion patients are using Medicaid. And that's throughout 15 different states. So I imagine in this time right now too, that number is probably going to decrease. So again, talking about a haven state that has these resources, we are probably going to be mixing up how that looks. And knowing that 53% of abortion patients pay out of pocket for their procedures is already a very concerning statistic. And so we are seeing how in our time right now, we have to be looking at different resources for

people. We have to put on our activist hats. We have to be supporting our community and we have to be supporting abortion funds because already 53% of abortions are paid out of pocket. And just to summarize one more point, 88% of people who are using abortion services are going to be using those within the first 12 weeks. So we are needing to see a lot of activism around abortion pill distribution and abortion pill education and what that looks like no the to like piggyback off of what robert was mentioning earlier about how it just feels like they're taking advantage of the fact that like things cost so much money and i feel like if you this work is so important because I don't think a lot of people know what they're getting into if they're like because we don't have a great

education system in general let alone about like reproductive health or like what happens when you get pregnant so if you're a young person or I mean any age and you are desperate or you're feeling shame you don't have support from your community or something and you see a institution that's like free ultrasound or like whatever it's like they're preying on this desperation and i think one of the only things you can do to like combat that is like try to educate people as much as possible that like i don't know people are as um they don't have the good will and good faith that they present to be to have. And I guess it just like ultimately you have to be distrusting of people. And maybe that's sad, but it's the truth.

Yeah, definitely. And I will say I feel like I saw that as a service provider. So as I mentioned, I worked in homeless services, specifically with youth homeless services. And you see that so much. You see how there is medical oppression for people of color. There is medical manipulation and violence for so many people to abortions and births, I have observed that myself. And I have seen how more people than not are going to experience some type of medical manipulation. And especially if you are living in poverty, especially if you're a person of color, especially if you're LGBTQIA. are living in poverty, especially if you're a person of color, especially if you're LGBTQIA.

This issue does not just stop, you know, with CPCs. If we take out all the CPCs, we also have to address so much of the institutionalized racism and all the things that exist around reproductive health, you know, starting at how to get contraceptives to when can you have children and how can you be a parent? And that never ends throughout the cycle, you know, and that parents, even after they have babies, even if they are a person of color, even if they are LGBTQIA, you know, they are still told how, when, where they're going to parent. And there's so much control over that rhetoric for people. So, you know, I mean, that even goes back to me thinking about the sterilization trials that happened against USC in the 70s and how women were forcibly sterilized. And, you know, that has nothing to do with CPCs, but instead we're seeing that institutions are

finding this control and having these agendas. And it is not serving our society. It is not serving our health. And instead, it is creating more trauma in our communities. And crisis pregnancy centers are just one of many layers of medical oppression that we are witnessing in today's world. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me as the fire and dare enter Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America.

From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong,

though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the

chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that Thank you. and to bring their words to life. Listen to Black Lit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral.

Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. As a person who was working in homeless services, I was program planning for a lot of the resources that we were able to provide access to for my clients. So all of my clients at that time, when I was running the pregnant parenting program at a nonprofit, they were either pregnant and or parenting while also experiencing their housing insecurities. So I strive to find what the proper resources were for them to support them in every trauma informed way I possibly could. And that were youth friendly. So there was a local agency that was very, very close to where I worked and their services always kind of felt like limited to me. So I met with them specifically

to inquire because they were always trying to find some type of partnership with us and would knock on our door or call me. So I finally was able to give them some of my time. And so their services always felt limited and non-comprehensive. And I think that is the biggest kind of like takeaway. They always gave me really weird reasoning why they didn't provide birth control or STI testing. And based on their answer, as I mentioned, I just did not allow the partnership to thrive. So when I did more research, I actually confirmed from another service provider that they're from another agency that they were indeed a CPC. Before I could spread the word, they also already had several partnerships with other homeless service providers. So they wiggled their way in. And these

other homeless service providers were also working with young vulnerable clients. So one day I was actually invited by another agency to come to this presentation where I didn't realize happened to be the CPC. The CPC was presenting at this organization and it was one of their outreach workers explaining what their services were. So I took it upon myself to make sure that I sat in that meeting and I asked questions in the room with the other service providers. I think there were about 30 other service providers that were present. And I asked out loud, why doesn't your clinic provide birth control? And the woman from the CPC, who was the outreach worker said, we can't give pap smears, so we're unable to provide birth control.

If you know anything, side note. If you know, yeah, I already see the questioning, which I'm glad I received that reaction because that is the exact reaction you should be getting. Audience, those of us with uteruses, when? Huh? Yeah. All of our heads tilted and our eyes were squinting exactly please explain how that math doesn't work yeah yeah exactly side note for all the listeners

if you know anything about health care you know that a pap smear is not associated with being able to be prescribed birth control. So as someone that has background in healthcare, has a master's in public health, worked as a doula, I continue to push back during the presentation. And it was very, very clear that I was onto something. So this woman, again, she would always try to like come around, give me pamphlets, try to have us partner and say she really want to work with us and our youth. She stopped after that presentation. I can tell you that. But anyway, so I keep going. I reach out to the person who organized that presentation for the CPC outreach person to attend and speak at. So I was like, I need to get to the bottom of this and I need to

spread this word and tell people, hey, you're getting people from CPCs to come and speak to you to advertise your services. So I cc'd a lot of the other service providers and I expressed my genuine concerns, the lack of evidence-based comprehensive care they provided. But unfortunately, the person who I emailed said clients need to make sure those decisions are their own so they can decide if they want to go or if they don't want to go. We can't force them to say yes or no to go to a health care facility. So I responded by asking, but what if you thought you were seeing a doctor for your health care needs and then it turns out the health care provider is providing misinformation and might not even be a health healthcare provider. I never got a response from them, but I still continue to make

sure that I was reaching out to everyone at that meeting and just raising awareness behind it. And then I wanted to take it to, I wanted to take it a notch up. So I called both of this, both of the locations of the CPC. One is located in Westwood, side note, next to UCLA. The other one was in South LA, side note, community of color. Both of my calls led me to the person on the phone telling me that they don't know where to send me for an abortion and that they didn't know what Planned Parenthood was, what they did, or where they were located when I specifically asked. So they were obviously circumventing the ability to even talk about abortions and what it was.

And that was all the concern that I genuinely needed. So in my present day, I'm still concerned with these clinics. This specific clinic that is local to me, I recently found out that in my present day work, there are currently three treatment centers that are using this crisis pregnancy center as a resource. So hopefully that means more to come because I will be working on this. And in this scenario, what I am doing as an activist and as a person who cares for my community is I will be educating these treatment

centers about what crisis pregnancy centers are and how they can avoid them and what comprehensive services actually look like. Have there been more sort of widespread organizations who are working to A, let people know what they are and then B, also trying to get them not to be funded? A, let people know what they are, and then B, also trying to get them not to be funded? Absolutely, there are, and we need to shout them out. There is an abortion fund in California called AXIS. They are wonderful. They provide abortion advocacy and awareness and education. And they also provide direct services and fund

different, they fund abortions in different capacities. So they might be funding the abortion services, the lodging, the transportation, and even a doula. And they partner with a lot of other agencies that are doing the work. The agency is called Reproductive Transparency Now, and they are a Chicago-based nonprofit. They provide a lot of information, data, awareness, research to raise awareness around what CPCs are and why we should be avoiding them. And I think I can say that I have the same goal as them in my personal life, but to ensure that they do not exist and are all shut down. So they are wonderful. I would highly suggest looking into reproductive transparency now,

and also access reproductive justice, who are doing a lot of really great work. And then I also do want to squeeze in other resources for people as well. Please. Yeah. And, you know, as I mentioned, first and foremost, I think the number one thing we need to know is that crisis pregnancy centers should not exist in any capacity. But if you are a person who's providing resources, who is working with clients, who works in healthcare, treatment centers, whatever it be, please utilize crisispregnancycentermap.com. Again, this is the website that was created by two associate professors at University of Georgia. And I want to make sure that this spreads far and wide because it will be the matter of providing referrals and circumventing CPCs. And I want to acknowledge that a lot of my data from this, from the information that I've been speaking

on is from the CrisisPregnancyCenterMap.com and from Reproductive Transparency as well. So first and foremost, that map is a necessity. Another resource that i would like to share to be able to find your state's abortion fund is abortionfunds.org and you can search state by state so you know i'm in california so that's going to be access again an organization that is an abortion fund but but they do more than fund abortions. I also really encourage people to find their local evidence-based doulas, midwives, women's health practitioners near them. And I know that there's a lot of fear existing right now due to the inappropriate politicians that are making disgusting decisions, but know that abortion pills can be accessed and there are people that can help guide you through. So I would say making sure that we're accessing

the resources on a website called plan C pill.com. It's a great resource where you can find where to purchase abortion pills and where to seek medical and legal support as well. So if you have a question about how to take medical abortion pills or you need to understand the legality of your state and the area near you, you can look on this website as a resource. I just also want to emphasize like what community care looks like right now. If you are a person who can get pregnant, this is truly a time to seek preventative care. And I know that that's a loaded can of worms for a lot of people. So I just, I really want to plug this in. If you would like to learn about pregnancy prevention, you can take a look at

bedsider.org to assess your needs. I would highly recommend pairing that with talking to a provider who understands your lifestyle and can support you with finding one that works best for you because every single contraceptive is going to look a little different. If you're a person who does not like birth control, I want you to know to please still seek preventative methods, whether that's a barrier method or whether that's more so of a holistic method like fertility awareness method. I encourage

you to still speak to someone you can trust to ensure you're using that method correctly. And again, there are doulas and midwives that can help guide you in the right direction for for holistic practices. And to continue on to my community, my community kind of recognition, I hope that this is also time where if it's feasible for you to, if you can't yourself, find friends and family that you trust and people around you to either receive yourself or to get it from other people, have pregnancy tests around you and make sure that if you feel like you might be pregnant, whether you are using an actual method or if you're not using a method currently, make sure you at very least have pregnancy tests around you so that you can detect early on if you are pregnant. Normal, normalize buying

your friend's pregnancy test for their birthdays. I have, we just have to normalize that as a community and normalize buying abortion pills in case someone, you know, might need them in the future, or it might be someone that you don't know who could use them. Um, and to have that accessible, if that is feasible for you financially. them and to have that accessible if that is feasible for you financially. And then, yeah, I think just to summarize, like this is truly a time for community support. And when the government doesn't support us, we need to figure out, unfortunately, how.

And if you got the ability, go get sn uh, go get, go get snipped. Uh, you know, there's, there's options out there. Um, options. Yeah.

I, I, I provide vasectomies by the way, if you can just find me in my house. Um, I'm not good at it yet, but 15, 20 more people, I'm going to not,

I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to figure it out. Oh, that's what that room is for. That makes sense. Well, I got one of those sharpening wheels and my butter knives are pretty fucking...

They got a good edge. They got a good edge these days. Genuinely incredibly disappointed you're not using the machete for this. This feels like a betrayal. Well, there's other reproductive health care I use the machete for, but that

does have to do with crisis pregnancy centers, actually. Well, I'll have a bunch of referrals for you then. I know where to send them. That kind of leans into another topic I'm covering today, unfortunately. Well, thank you so much for coming on and for talking to us this has been very enlightening um i wish uh it wasn't such a bleak subject but people need to know the fuck's going on people needed to know this a lot earlier but you know i mean broadly speaking the thing i keep coming back to in this whole fight is the frustration of like the rest of us like we have life's hard enough there's like so much going on people are like busy trying to trying to get by trying to do their lives trying to like find pieces of happiness in

the world and there's this fucking group of the worst people in the country that have just made this made fucking access to reproductive health care up for everyone, the focus of their entire life for 30 years. And unfortunately, now we have to like, do that, make the opposite the focus of our lives, because we kind of just not all of us, obviously, like you've been in this fight for a while, but most of us kind of were not paying as much attention as needed to be paid. Like most people in the, and I'm not trying to throw blame on folks, but like clearly the majority of people in the country who support access to reproductive healthcare, weren't paying enough attention, you know, like that's the, that's the only way to frame it. Totally. And it's almost as if we are picking up the mess that others are creating.

Yeah. And after experiencing COVID as a society, everyone's a public health professional now and a doctor. I am a doctor. Clearly, yeah. I'm sending referrals to you. Thank you. talking about it and also opening the door up for, you know, people like me to talk about evidence-based practices and what the reality is and who's doing the work and everything that focuses around reproductive health. So I appreciate this conversation. I appreciate that there are podcasts discussing this information. It's necessary. And these issues are not going anywhere. And we're going a little backwards.

So I really appreciate your time on this. Yeah. Thank you for coming on the show. And all right, everybody, that's the fucking episode. Go do something else. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com. Thanks for listening. in here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into Tex Elite

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