A Renewed Push for Crisis Pregnancy Centers in Pennsylvania
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** CfA's March 22, 2024 Newsletter
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With your support, Campaign for Accountability is working to expose corruption and hold the powerful accountable.
** This Week's Updates:
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Anti-Abortion Clinics Get Organized in Pennsylvania
In the summer of 2023, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro terminated ([link removed]) the state’s contract with Real Alternatives, an anti-abortion organization that operated a series of crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) in the state. Unlike real abortion clinics, CPCs do not provide comprehensive reproductive care, and may not have licensed medical providers on staff. A few months after the Shapiro Administration pulled funding for these anti-abortion clinics, Pennsylvania Attorney General Michelle Henry urged ([link removed]) patients to ask their pregnancy care providers about medical licensing and HIPPA compliance, which many CPCs lack. Now, CPC advocates are attempting to rebrand their deceptive and unethical model
through the Pennsylvania Pregnancy Wellness Collaborative (PPWC), which was launched ([link removed]) earlier this week. PPWC’s messaging ([link removed]) emphasizes the “medical resources” offered by its member organizations, and bills itself ([link removed]) as “unifying pregnancy medical clinics and resource centers.” Of course, CPCs are not real clinics and do not adhere to accepted standards of care; in PPWC’s inaugural press conference, members ([link removed]) referred to services like “abortion pill reversals,” which are untested protocols that do not meet medical standards ([link removed]) set by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
Kansas Lawmakers Push Funding for Crisis Pregnancy Centers
This week, Kansas lawmakers on the Committee for State and Federal Affairs debated the merits of HB 2809 ([link removed]) , a bill which would direct $5.8 million ([link removed]) in taxpayer funds to crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs). Unlike real reproductive health clinics, CPCs do not provide access to abortions or quality care; the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends ([link removed]) that patients avoid these facilities, pointing out that they are “unregulated and often nonmedical.” The CPC funding bill is part of a broader strategy for anti-abortion groups in Kansas, which faced a resounding defeat ([link removed]) when
voters declined to remove abortion protections from the state’s constitution. Instead of directly attacking reproductive rights, Republican lawmakers are advancing legislation that would make it more difficult or expensive for women to access abortions – including a bill that would force doctors to question women ([link removed]) about their choice to terminate a pregnancy. Ultimately, women’s answers would be reported to the state, along with a host of demographic information which is already collected.
In 2020, CfA urged Pennsylvania officials to pull state funding from an organization called Real Alternatives, which channeled money to CPCs that were forbidden to even discuss contraception ([link removed]) with patients. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) eventually terminated the contract ([link removed]) with Real Alternatives in 2023, cutting it off from taxpayer dollars. The Kansas CPC funding bill would divert money ([link removed]) from the state’s Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program, meaning that other initiatives could face cuts.
Following the Money on Nonconsensual Explicit Deepfakes
Over 95% of existing AI-generated deepfakes are created to sexualize, degrade, or harass women, according to multiple ([link removed]) studies ([link removed]) conducted since 2019. Some states ([link removed]) have criminalized nonconsensual deepfakes, or allowed victims to sue their creators, but a lack of federal laws leave most Americans unprotected. This week, the Virtual Summit on Deepfake Abuse ([link removed]) convened multiple panels to discuss technical and regulatory solutions to the problem. One, titled “Deepfake Abuse is Now Mainstream: What Can Tech Do?”, focused on policy changes that could add friction to the process of creating explicit deepfakes. Ultimately, the panelists pointed to payment processors and ad
networks as one of the simplest bottlenecks: if individuals cannot accept money for deepfakes or monetize websites hosting deepfake content, it removes a major incentive for creating them. Search engines could serve as another bottleneck; Google, at the moment, dutifully points ([link removed]) users to websites where they can create, share, or browse nonconsensual deepfake content. The experts seemed to agree that these roadblocks wouldn’t stop all bad actors, but could make it much more difficult for everyday users to generate deepfakes – especially when combined with broader criminalization.
What We're Reading
Large Grocers Took Advantage of Pandemic Supply Chain Disruptions, F.T.C. Finds ([link removed])
Leonard Leo, Koch networks pour millions into groups prepping for potential second Trump administration ([link removed])
Standard pregnancy care is now dangerously disrupted in Louisiana, report reveals ([link removed])
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Be on the lookout for more updates about our work in the upcoming weeks. Thanks again for signing up to be a part of CfA!
Sincerely,
Michelle Kuppersmith
Executive Director, Campaign for Accountability
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