New York Is Suing Anti-Abortion ‘Crisis Pregnancy Centers’ Over ‘Abortion Pill Reversal’ Disinfo

Moji Alawode-El was in her early 20s and knew she wanted to have an abortion after she found out she was unexpectedly pregnant in 2003. “I was poor, I was pregnant, I didn’t want to be,” she told Jezebel recently. But when Alawode-El, who now works with Abortion Access Front, went looking to get a pregnancy test from a medical facility to confirm her pregnancy, she wound up at an anti-abortion crisis pregnancy center. A CPC in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan drew her in with the promise of a free pregnancy test—but CPCs exist solely to try to convince people seeking abortions to remain pregnant and lure abortion seekers onto their premises by pretending to offer full-service reproductive care. The first alarm for Alawode-El came when the CPC worker who attended to her said, “You’re going to be a mom” when her pregnancy test—which was from a drugstore—came back positive. “I was like, ‘No, I’m not.’ It was very uncomfortable.” Alawode-El asked for abortion pills to end her pregnancy. The CPC didn't provide abortions, but of course they didn't tell her that. "They said, ‘We’re out of stock right now, but call us next week.’” She did, and was told they were still out-of-stock and to call again next week. A week passed; she called again. They were still “out of stock.” Three weeks passed—three weeks Alawode-El was forced to remain pregnant when she didn’t want to be, three weeks waiting for something that wasn’t coming. “There was no Google back then,” she told Jezebel. “There was no way for me to get information on what was really going on, where I could really get help.” That’s the goal of crisis pregnancy centers: To prevent or delay abortion by any means, including with bald-faced lies. For decades, CPCs have told abortion seekers that abortion causes cancer and infertility, and that having an abortion will make someone suicidal. Recently, more and more CPCs—many of which are trained, funded, and otherwise supported by the massive anti-abortion conglomerate Heartbeat International—have been lying to abortion seekers that medication abortion with pills can be reversed through an unsafe, untested method that’s been found to cause dangerous complications.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Expose Fake Clinics (@calloutfakeclinics) Last week, New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) filed a lawsuit against Heartbeat International and 11 CPCs across the state for “using false and misleading statements” to “aggressively” advertise so-called abortion pill reversal, endangering consumers who come to them seeking care. According to Mother Jones, Heartbeat operates some but not all of the CPCs that are being sued, but all of the CPCs “advertise or promote Heartbeat” and abortion pill reversal.  In a statement shared with Jezebel, James’ office said Heartbeat International and the other defendants in the suit “are spreading dangerous misinformation by advertising 'abortion reversals' without any medical and scientific proof,” and accused the groups of “[pushing] a scientifically unproven and potentially life-threatening intervention” on consumers. “Abortions cannot be reversed. Any treatments that claim to do so are made without scientific evidence and could be unsafe,” James said. “Amid the increase in attacks on reproductive health care nationwide, we must protect pregnant people’s right to make safe, well-informed decisions about their health.” According to Heartbeat International and other anti-abortion activists, a medication abortion that’s underway can be “reversed” if, after taking the mifepristone pills that induce a miscarriage, the person then ingests large amounts of progesterone and doesn’t take the misoprostol pills that expel the pregnancy. There is no medical evidence that this works, and a 2019 study…