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Date: 5/3/2022
AMHERST – District 5 Councilor and Town Council Vice President Ana Devlin Gauthier presented a PowerPoint describing deceptive advertisement strategies by limited services pregnancy centers, also known as crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs). Devlin Gauthier crafted a bylaw which the council unanimously approved to be referred to the Governance, Organization and Legislation (GOL) Committee before a second reading and official vote by the council.
“Pregnant individuals turn to pregnancy resource or crisis centers for advice and counseling at what is a very difficult time in their lives,” Devlin Gauthier said. “When CPCs provide intentionally deceptive, misleading or false information, they’re causing significant harm. CPCs are organizations that pose as legitimate medical clinics serving pregnant individuals. These centers often mask their mission in deceptive advertising in order to attract ‘abortion-vulnerable clients.’ Their goal is to dissuade pregnant people from receiving abortions. The individuals who contact these centers are often teenagers who need medically accurate information to help them make a fully informed decision. CPCs often target low-income women, women of color, adolescents and women with less formal education.”
Devlin Gauthier said CPCs mimic reproductive health clinics in their ads and on their websites. She said they will utilize similar language of choice and empowerment, support and compassion, wellness, patient-centered care and will often intentionally locate right next to abortion clinics, using names like Center for Pregnancy Choices or Your Options Medical. The clinics will occasionally even mimic specific colors and fonts of abortion providers.
“A study of the CPC industry in nine states by the Alliance which, is a state advocate for women’s rights and gender equality, found that 95 percent of these CPCs offered no prenatal care and only one provided contraception,” Devlin Gauthier said. “But over half offered non-diagnostic ultrasounds to show images of the embryo to discourage women from getting an abortion.”
She cited a 2006 investigation by the U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Government Reform, which found that 20 out of 23 contacted centers provided false or misleading information about the health effects of abortion.
“Often, these centers vastly misrepresented the medical risks of abortion, claiming that having one could increase the risk of breast cancer, which is false, result in sterility, false, and lead to suicide and post-abortion stress disorder – also false, not a real disorder,” Devlin Gauthier said. “These deceptive practices serve to advance the mission of these pregnancy research centers which are typically pro-life organizations dedicated to preventing abortion.”
Devlin Gauthier said the bylaw will not ban CPCs from existing but will limit their ability to advertise deceptively within Amherst, something she was adamant would be a critical step in protecting and defending abortion rights.
“While we do not have a CPC in Amherst currently, there are 29 in the state and there have been attempts by these organizations to establish in our community in the past, and those outside our community could advertise here,” she said. “Having a bylaw that prohibits their engagement in deceptive advertising will ensure that that strategy does not prevail. As a community, we have affirmed our belief in the right to access abortion care. In 2019, the Town Council passed a resolution affirming support for access to safe and legal abortion in the commonwealth of Massachusetts and across the U.S.”
“We are facing an attack on abortion rights on a national scale,” Devlin Gauthier said. “Every single day. It may seem that those fights are only on a national scale or don’t come down to land in Amherst. That’s not true. These CPCs appear to be local but many are part of large, national networks. They are bringing that national attack on abortion rights to a local scale and we must defend and protect abortion rights in the same way. Local policy is our responsibility, and we have a responsibility to act. The reality is that in order to protect abortion rights we all need to show up every day in every capacity we can. This bylaw is one tool to continue to realize our commitment to abortion access. This is one of many opportunities we must take on our local level to ensure these rights are not dismantled.”
The councilors agreed and appreciated Devlin Gauthier’s work and proposal.
“It’s critically important that we protect women’s rights,” said District 2 Councilor Pat DeAngelis. “Whatever your position is on abortion is unimportant. What is important is women retain their right to choose.”
After agreeing to send the bylaw to GOL, Town Manager Paul Bockelman provided counselors with a brief update. Bockelman said he was thrilled to have the state select Amherst as one of the sites for wastewater testing for COVID-19.
“There’s 16 communities in that program right now,” Bockelman said. “That’s funded through the end of June, and we’ll be testing three times a week at the Wastewater Treatment Plant for COVID-19. We are advocating at the state level that we continue this because there’s a lot of other uses that surveillance testing can be used for, not just COVID-19 but for all kinds of transferable diseases.”
Bockelman concluded with a report that the first farmers market of the season was a smashing success per the farmers’ market manager. He said all vendors had a successful day, and they received positive feedback on adjusting the market to take just half of the town common which condenses the crowd and reduces walking distances while keeping it on the common.