In the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — which held that the U.S. Constitution does not confer a right to terminate a pregnancy — certain factions of the pro-abortion movement are reportedly encouraging violence against anti-abortion pregnancy resource centers and are promoting a website created by professors at a public university in Georgia as a way to locate their targets.
Pregnancy resource centers have been the focus of much scrutiny by Democratic lawmakers and pro-abortion forces in the United States for years. These resource centers offer a range of services, including pregnancy tests, supportive counseling, limited ultrasounds, STD/STI testing, parenting classes, diapers, formula, and more.
In 2018, Drs. Andrea Swartzendruber and Danielle Lambert, two professors of epidemiology and biostatistics in the College of Public Health at the University of Georgia, created “CPC Map,” a website that lists the physical location of over 2,500 pregnancy resource centers operating in the United States.
CPC stands for Crisis Pregnancy Center, an alternative name for these same entities.
While the website lists its goals as “to help individuals seeking health services know which centers are CPCs” and “to facilitate academic research related to CPCs,” it also refers to CPCs as “fake women’s health centers” and describes the primary aim of CPCs as “keeping women from having an abortion.”
According to a press release from the University of Georgia announcing the launch of the CPC Map website in 2018, the two professors “identified 2,537 total crisis pregnancy centers. Of these, two-thirds provide limited medical services, such as limited obstetrical ultrasounds.”
“They often advertise themselves in ways that make them look like they could be a comprehensive reproductive health clinic,” said Dr. Swartzendruber, but the press release notes that “CPCs offer only limited medical services, if any, and do not adhere to prevailing U.S. medical guidelines.”
“There’s reason to think that people seeking health services may not know exactly what these centers are and the services they offer,” she said.
“That presents a problem for women looking for basic reproductive health services like access to birth control, condoms or testing for sexually transmitted infections,” the release reads. “They may mistakenly go to a crisis pregnancy center, and not be able to find the services they want.”
A complete list of services the professors would like to see offered to expectant mothers was not provided.
Even before the Dobbs ruling was announced on June 24, the Puget Sound Anarchists, a group that “aspires to provide a space for anarchists and anti-authoritarians in the Pacific Northwest,” published pictures of the vandalism of what it called “an anti-abortion crisis pregnancy center” on its website. The page called on others to “find [their] nearest fake abortion clinic” with a link to the CPC Map website.
Colorado Liberation & Autonomy, also known as COLA, tweeted, “If abortions are not safe, neither are you” and included a link to the CPC Map.
The Colorado Springs Anti-Fascists group retweeted the message, along with the text, “For the night owls….”
Groups like COLA and Puget Sound Anarchists appear to promote violence against pregnancy resource centers based upon the CPC website.
On July 7, two Republican members of Congress from Georgia, Jody Hice and Andrew Clyde, wrote a letter to University of Georgia President Jere Morehead decrying the use of the CPC Map by “radical domestic terrorist groups” to “locate targets for criminal acts of violence and destruction.”
The congressmen wrote, “Even worse, this project seems to enjoy the support of our state’s flagship university,” noting that on the CPC Map website’s FAQ page, Drs. Swatzendruger and Lambert indicate their team can be contacted at [email protected].
“It appears, at minimum, the University is providing resources for these faculty members to run this website,” the Congressmen concluded.
The letter goes on to demand that the University of Georgia “immediately take corrective action to ensure that university resources are no longer being used to target crisis pregnancy centers,” calling it “reckless and irresponsible for these professors and the University to maintain this map.”
The congressmen gave the University a deadline of July 15 to respond.