Drawing on in-depth interviews with women who visited crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) for pregnancy-related services, itself a relatively uncommon experience, ANSIRH's Katrina Kimport identifies two primary ways in which CPC counselors attempted to stigmatize abortion. First, they provided scientifically inaccurate information that exaggerated the risks of abortion. Second, they affirmed parenting in their counseling, presenting it as the preferred pregnancy outcome, often with reference to religious beliefs about childbearing.
The effectiveness of these efforts to stigmatize abortion varied and was dependent on the woman’s preexisting beliefs about abortion and whether she had already been considering abortion. In some cases, these stigmatization efforts were successful. In other cases, they were misrecognized or failed completely.
Read more about the study, “Pregnant Women's Experiences of Crisis Pregnancy Centers: When Abortion Stigmatization Succeeds and Fails,” in the journal Symbolic Interaction.