The Trojan Horse — How Crisis Pregnancy Centers Masquerade as Care to Push Theocracy (Part 1 of 6)
Forced Birth Industrial Complex: How American Christian Nationalists Turn Pregnancy Into Profit (series)
The American anti‑abortion movement is upheld by a vast network of political, economic, and religious forces. What may appear at first as a grassroots effort to “save babies” is in fact powered by sophisticated crisis pregnancy center (CPC) networks, slick media operations, legal loopholes, and the support of powerful law firms. Ending abortion is just Act One. With Project 2025 in hand, the broader goal is to reengineer American society around hardline religious control.
In May 2025, Trump issued an executive order creating the Religious Liberty Commission, a federal body tasked with embedding "faith-based values" across U.S. policy. Combined with Project 2025, which explicitly aims to dismantle reproductive rights and LGBTQ+ protections, the commission signals an alarming, intensified push to codify Christian nationalist priorities into governance.
This series investigates six key components of what I call the “Forced Birth Industrial Complex” — a coordinated machine of Christian nationalism, patriarchal control, and weaponization of the law designed to make pregnancy both compulsory and extremely profitable.
The Trojan horse — How crisis pregnancy centers masquerade as care to push theocracy
Gospel & gavel — The legal & political infrastructure smuggling anti-abortion ideology into law
Womb with a view— Rise of the reproductive police state & the criminalization of pregnancy
False prophets & embryo evangelism — The media machine that makes embryos sacred & women disposable
The United State of Gilead — Meet the billionaires buying your bodily autonomy
The chosen few — White saviorism, Christian adoption, & the baby supply chain
The first installment of this investigative series examines how CPCs operate as the front lines of a sprawling, well-funded campaign to control reproductive lives in America. Far from being “neutral, charitable alternatives to abortion,” CPCs are deliberately designed to deceive, delay, and disempower. Backed by Christian nationalist networks and political allies, these fake clinics use medical theater, misinformation, and religious coercion to steer pregnant people away from evidence-based care — all while masquerading as legitimate healthcare providers.
And with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) increasingly applying the FACE Act to protect CPCs while abortion providers face ongoing threats and violence, the legal line between church, state, and ideology is growing dangerously thin. The evidence reveals CPCs as strategic tools in a broader authoritarian project to reshape society around fundamentalist values and reproductive control.
Part 1: The Trojan horse — How crisis pregnancy centers masquerade as care to push theocracy
In a nondescript office park in Tennessee, a bright sign reads “Women's Health Options.” Inside, the staff is decked out in scrubs and smiling warmly. However, they offer no abortions or comprehensive healthcare — only pamphlets, a pee stick, an ultrasound machine, a Bible, and a volunteer ready to steer any pregnant woman away from ending her pregnancy. This is a CPC, one of thousands of anti-abortion centers, or “fake clinics,” operating across the United States. CPCs present themselves as legitimate reproductive health clinics, but behind the friendly facade and soft, pastel aesthetic lies a strategic entry point to a vast Christian fundamentalist ecosystem.
For decades, CPCs have multiplied and evolved as a cornerstone of the anti-abortion, Christian fundamentalist agenda. Today, they dramatically outnumber real abortion clinics — on average 3 to 1 nationwide (in some states, like Texas where there is a total abortion ban, the ratio is far higher).
CPCs first emerged in the late 1960s as a reaction to the liberalization of abortion laws. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s — especially after Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in 1973 — evangelical and Catholic anti-abortion groups opened hundreds of CPCs nationwide. Their explicit mission has been to prevent abortions by persuading women to choose birth or adoption.
Over time, CPCs grew from small, volunteer-run counseling offices into a well-funded national industry. By the 2000s, major umbrella organizations like Care Net, Heartbeat International (HBI), and National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA) professionalized the movement, providing legal support, ultrasound machines, and training to local centers. Crucially, they also began tapping into public funds and political patronage.
Under President George W. Bush’s “faith-based initiatives,” CPCs started receiving federal grants — notably through abstinence-only education programs. More than $60 million in federal funds flowed to CPCs during the Bush era, thus legitimizing CPCs with government support.
Under Trump’s first presidential term, CPCs gained even more influence. Trump officials openly courted CPCs to apply for Title X family planning funds (after Planned Parenthood and others lost funding due to the “gag rule” on abortion referrals). And in a major victory for the forced birth machine, the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in NIFLA v. Becerra struck down state laws requiring CPCs to disclose they are not licensed medical facilities. This removed any obligation for truth in advertising, freeing CPCs to continue posing as clinics without legal penalty. Encouraged by the federal government and shielded by courts, CPC networks expanded their reach online and in communities across the country.
Since the Supreme Court’s June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision overturned Roe v. Wade protections for abortion care, CPCs have entered a new boom era. With abortion now banned or heavily restricted in much of the country, anti-abortion legislators herald CPCs as the answer for pregnant women forced to carry pregnancies.
In 2022 alone, America’s network of CPCs took in at least $1.4 billion in revenue, including over $344 million in government funding. An exclusive analysis of tax filings showed the industry’s revenue jumped roughly 40% from 2019 to 2022. At least 16 states have pledged more than $250 million for “alternatives to abortion” programs (largely funding CPCs) for 2023 to 2025. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson even led a bill to protect federal funding for CPCs, calling them essential in a post-Roe world.
Yet for all the money pouring in, where it actually goes is disturbingly opaque. The CPC industry is cloaked in secrecy, as many watchdog experts note, with little accountability for what happens to women’s private health data or health outcomes. As we’ll see, CPCs often provide minimal tangible aid. Many centers appear more focused on expanding their political and religious mission than on materially supporting pregnant people. And increasingly, CPC funding is linked to powerful right-wing benefactors and organizations (from Texas oil billionaires to the DeVos family), tying “pregnancy help” directly to Christian nationalist political influence (I will delve into this topic more thoroughly in Part 3).
Looks like help, smells like judgment
Walk into a CPC, and at first glance you might think you’re in a medical clinic — that’s because they mimic abortion clinics in language, design, and online presence to lure in women who believe they’re seeking legitimate medical care.
Many CPCs locate next door to real abortion providers or Planned Parenthood clinics, adopting confusingly similar names and signage. For instance, a CPC might call itself “Women’s Health Center” or “FirstChoice” — nearly indistinguishable from nearby comprehensive clinics (and a very deliberate use of “choice”).
Even Heartbeat International, one of the largest CPC networks, admits this targeting is intentional. In a defensive and misleading “fact check,” the group concedes:
“We are indeed going after the same woman as the abortion industry.”
Though they attempt to “fact-check” repro rights claims here, in short, the deception isn’t denied. It’s reframed as giving women “more options,” though those options are rooted in ideology, not healthcare.
In fact, deception is central to CPC operations. Investigations and academic studies have documented a pattern of false advertising and medical misinformation at these centers. A recent multi-state study titled “Designed to Deceive” by The Alliance: State Advocates for Women’s Rights and Gender Equality found that almost two-thirds of CPCs promote patently false or biased medical claims about abortion, contraception, and pregnancy. As reported in “Crisis Pregnancy Centers Lie” by the National Abortion Federation (NAF), common lies include:
“Abortions cause breast cancer.”
“Abortions lead to infertility or mental illness.”
“Condoms don’t work.”
Worse, many CPCs advertise “abortion pill reversal” (APR) — an unproven and dangerous practice that claims taking high-dose progesterone can undo a medication abortion. The FDA has never approved APR, and a clinical trial was halted due to severe safety concerns. Yet CPCs nationwide tout APR as an emergency option, a tactic so misleading that it has prompted lawsuits from state attorneys general for fraud
Undercover research and testimony reveal tactics meant to delay and dissuade. Staff may withhold pregnancy test results or exaggerate how far along a pregnancy is to make abortion seem more urgent or impossible. In one case, a Texas CPC performed an ultrasound and told a woman she was 9 weeks pregnant; suspicious, she later went to a real clinic in Illinois and learned she was only 5 weeks pregnant. That four-week discrepancy meant she could have obtained an abortion in Texas (which bans abortion around 6 weeks) — but the CPC’s misinformation caused her to travel across state lines unnecessarily.
Often, this can lead dangerous outcomes. For example, in 2023, a Massachusetts woman filed a class-action lawsuit against Clearway Clinic, a CPC in Worcester, alleging it failed to diagnose her ectopic pregnancy during an ultrasound. Believing the pregnancy was viable, she later suffered a rupture that required emergency surgery and removal of a fallopian tube. The suit claims the clinic deceptively posed as a medical facility to discourage abortion.
Harassment and coercion are common at CPCs. Volunteers have chased women in parking lots and stalked outside abortion clinics. In one case reported by the Chicago Abortion Fund, a woman was told she was going to hell and physically prevented from leaving a CPC for over three hours. She had children waiting at home, and believed the clinic would offer abortion referrals, as promised on its website — instead, she was berated and held captive until she broke down.
The medical legitimacy CPCs convey — white coats, ultrasounds, “clinic” in the name — is largely an illusion. Fewer than half of CPCs have any licensed medical professional on staff, according to the Designed to Deceive study. Only 16% had a physician and 25% had a registered nurse listed, and even those might be volunteers who oversee multiple centers. Almost none are subject to health regulatory oversight, meaning untrained personnel can perform ultrasounds or give medical advice without accountability. Instead, religious ideology takes priority over patient health. As a commentary in the AMA Journal of Ethics bluntly concluded, CPCs “should be regarded as an ethical violation” that undermines women’s health.
Clickbait for Christ: Targeting, messaging, and deception
Online, anti-abortion organizations and CPCs spend millions for marketing to appear at the top of search results for terms like “abortion” or “abortion clinic,” despite not offering medical abortion services. These organizations use targeted search engine optimization, or SEO, strategies and pay for Google ads to reach people seeking reproductive care.
Critics argue that this practice misleads users and delays access to legitimate healthcare. A 2023 report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that CPCs in the U.S. spent over $10 million on Google Search ads over a two-year period, with many ads lacking disclaimers about the services they do not provide. While Google now requires disclaimers for non-abortion providers, enforcement remains inconsistent.
Anti-abortion organizations also use inflammatory, divisive language (such as calling abortion “baby murder"), which the Google algorithm favors. More engagement = higher ranking in search results.
Behind the scenes, national CPC networks like Care Net and HBI invest heavily in professional development and marketing strategy. Both groups organize annual conferences to train CPC staff, board members, and volunteers. These sessions cover everything from marketing, fundraising, and financial operations to crafting effective anti-abortion messaging and “responding to pro-choice arguments.”
Both organizations even produce podcasts — Care Net’s CareCast and HBI’s Pregnancy Help — that amplify false, core anti-abortion talking points, such as the idea that it’s the abortion providers that coerce vulnerable people and that abortion is not truly a matter of personal choice.
HBI brings in an estimated $1–2 million annually from its conferences, webinars, and Heartbeat Academy training platform, making up a significant portion of its $7.7 million total revenue (GuideStar, 2022 Form 990; HBI website; Designed to Deceive report). According to its IRS filings, HBI’s overall revenue includes about $1.4 million from program services — most of it from trainings and educational events — and nearly $6 million from contributions and grants.
Care Net, meanwhile, reports approximately $1–1.5 million in program service revenue, with its annual national conference drawing over 1,200 attendees paying between $400–$700 each. That translates to roughly $500,000–$840,000 in registration income alone — and that’s before adding money from corporate sponsorships, exhibitor fees, donations, and merchandise sales (Care Net, 2022 Annual Report; GuideStar Form 990; Designed to Deceive report). Care Net’s total annual revenue hovers around $9–10 million, with $7–8 million from contributions and grants and the rest from conferences and services.
While these funds nominally support training and local center operations, watchdog groups warn that a substantial portion flows into executive salaries, advertising campaigns, political lobbying, and religious outreach efforts — all reinforcing the CPC movement’s cultural and political influence.
Strings-attached charity masks a bigger agenda
CPCs market themselves as charities offering free help like diapers or baby clothes. While some material aid is provided, it’s often minimal and comes with strings attached. The most common “services” are pregnancy tests (typically drugstore kits) and infant items — but access is usually tied to participation in ideologically driven programs. To receive support, women must attend Christian parenting classes (more on these coming in Part 3), Bible studies, abstinence workshops, or counseling to earn “mommy bucks” they can trade for supplies.
One CPC client lost her job after missing work for an appointment, saying she was “desperate for the resources they offered and believ[ed] that attending all of the center’s appointments was important for the health of her pregnancy.” This ultimately led to her losing her home.
In short, the “free help” isn’t free — it’s a tool to keep women engaged and exposed to religious messaging. And the aid itself is modest. The Charlotte Lozier Institute bragged that CPCs gave out more diapers and baby items than ever in 2022, citing a 64% increase in diapers and 43% in baby wipes since 2019. They claimed $358 million in goods and services that year — but CPCs reported spending $1.2 billion, raising serious questions. “They took in $1.4 billion … and spent $1.2 billion,” said Jenifer McKenna of Reproductive Health and Freedom Watch. “What did they do with all that money?”
That question is especially stark in Texas, which leads the nation in public funding for CPCs through its “Alternatives to Abortion” program, rebranded in 2023 as “Thriving Texas Families.” A 2024 CBS News/ProPublica investigation revealed:
Rampant misuse of taxpayer funds with virtually no state oversight.
CPCs billed $14 per pack of diapers or even just pamphlets — many of which were donated or cost only pennies.
Viola’s House sourced diapers for ~$0.01 each, then:
Billed $14 per pack, and
Charged the state $30/hour for required parenting classes to access them.
One CPC received $3.5 million in public funds over three years while spending less than $1 million on services, pocketing over $2 million in reserves.
Another CPC built up a $1.6 million surplus to construct a new facility — which remains an empty lot.
Despite a 2021 scandal in which a subcontractor spent funds on vacations, a motorcycle, a smoke shop, and land for hemp production, the state never audited the program and still doesn’t track what CPCs are distributing with public money.
The same investigation found that Florida and Tennessee recently earmarked $25 million and $20 million, respectively, for CPCs while passing abortion bans. Yet neither state requires CPCs to show meaningful outcomes, like improved maternal health or poverty reduction. Public funds are filling church closets with diapers and underwriting evangelism — not actual healthcare or support.
Weaponizing the FACE Act: Graffiti is “terrorism,” assault is “prayer”
There is also the broader impact on communities. Legitimate clinics and hospitals face increased harassment and violence fomented by the anti-abortion movement’s divisive, misleading rhetoric, which CPCs often amplify. Organizations like HBI regularly spread propaganda that portrays abortion providers as “butchers” or “baby killers,” rhetoric that has historically fueled extremist violence against abortion providers. In fact, since the 1970s, anti-abortion extremists have committed bombings, arsons, kidnappings, and even murders at real clinics.
Post-Dobbs, fueled by anger at the decimation of more than 50 years of a woman’s constitutional right to her body, a new trend emerged: widespread vandalism at CPCs, purportedly by “radical pro-choice activists.” While these incidents (graffiti, broken windows, a few fires) are damaging to property; notably, they didn’t kill or injure anyone.
Still, the Right’s disingenuous political hysteria has been telling. Enter the FACE Act (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act). Although the FACE Act was enacted in 1994 to specifically address the epidemic of violence and obstruction at abortion clinics, right-wing staffers successfully lobbied to insert an amendment extending protections to “places of religious worship” — a move originally designed to complicate the bill’s passage. The amendment was quietly accepted in response to racist attacks on Black churches, but the language remained dormant for decades. Only in recent years — particularly after the fall of Roe — have anti-abortion actors and Christian nationalists aggressively reinterpreted this provision to claim victimhood and justify FACE Act prosecutions against abortion rights supporters.
Conservative media noted that in 2022, Biden’s DOJ charged 26 anti-abortion protesters under FACE Act (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act) for blocking clinic access but initially zero repro rights activists for spray painting graffiti on CPCs — framing this clear false equivalency as “bias.”
However, this false narrative found its full expression in two House Judiciary Subcommittee hearings on the FACE Act, held in May 2023 and again in May 2024, both led by Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX). Heavily lobbied by anti-abortion groups, he also proposed H.R. 5577, a bill to repeal the FACE Act entirely.
Amid the barrage of twisted GOP rhetoric during the hearings, Judiciary Committee Chair Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) distorted the facts while defending FACE Act defendant Mark Houck:
“What did they arrest [Houck] for? Praying in front of an abortion clinic and protecting his son from some crazy person screaming swear words in his child’s face.”
In reality, Houck was arrested for shoving a clinic escort — a violation of the FACE Act’s prohibition on force and obstruction — not for prayer.
But it was Paul Vaughn, a convicted FACE Act violator who conspired to blockade a clinic, who provided the most theatrical testimony of the day. He described his arrest with language verging on self-parody:
“I was kidnapped at gunpoint by four armed men,” he said, though he was peacefully arrested by FBI agents with a warrant. Vaughn continued: “At the moment of being placed in handcuffs, I became a slave to ideological tyrants.”
He then compared government enforcement of the FACE Act to “state violence” and abortion itself:
“There is violence committed against every unborn child in every abortion... and violence being done to pro-lifers by our own government.”
These statements encapsulate the forced birth movement’s broader rhetorical strategy: to frame legal consequences for anti-abortion clinic attacks as “persecution,” and to equate reproductive healthcare with “moral violence” — while ignoring the decades-long history of actual violence, murder, and terror inflicted by anti-abortion extremists.
Regardless, in alignment with mounting GOP pressure, in a quiet but significant shift Biden’s DOJ amended its public description of the FACE Act to explicitly include Christian fake clinics under its protections, even dubbing them “pro-life” — a politically divisive term — rather than the more accurate “anti-abortion” or even “crisis” pregnancy centers. According to Internet Archive records, this language was added to the DOJ’s website between August 16 and September 21, 2022 — just months after the Dobbs decision.
The new wording effectively elevated CPCs to the level of real abortion care clinics, in terms of FACE Act protections. The timing and framing of this revision suggests an effort to placate Republicans’ disingenuous criticisms — because shortly after the revision, Biden’s DOJ began charging repro rights activists under the FACE Act, as well. In early 2023, reproductive rights activists in Florida were indicted under the FACE Act for allegedly spray-painting slogans on the walls of empty fake clinics — actions that, while damaging to property, injured no one. This marked a turning point: the first time the FACE Act was applied to a reproductive rights activist act of property damage.
Listen to my exclusive interview with two of the Florida activists who were federally charged under the FACE Act for spray painting the walls of empty fake clinics at The Abortionfluencer Podcast (or anywhere you listen to podcasts).
They tell the story in their own words!
“This is yet another example of the government disproportionately charging alleged activists with serious crimes in an attempt to deter political opposition to the fall of Roe post Dobbs,” said Lauren Regan, the director of the Civil Liberties Defense Center and attorney for one of the defendants in the 2023 case. “Tagging private property might be a violation, but it should not be a federal crime.”
Jarringly, one of the first acts of the second Trump administration was to pardon 23 anti-abortion extremists who attacked and assaulted staff and patients at a DC abortion clinic (but not the repro rights activists who spray painted empty fake clinics). Trump’s DOJ subsequently declared that “future abortion-related FACE Act prosecutions and civil actions will be permitted only in extraordinary circumstances, or in cases presenting significant aggravating factors, such as death, serious bodily harm, or serious property damage,” opening the door for continued anti-abortion harassment, stalking, and terrorizing of abortion clinic providers, staff, and patients.
Additionally, Trump’s DOJ removed the language from the Biden-era DOJ guidance that distinguished “pro-life pregnancy centers” and changed the term “reproductive health care services” to the more vague “reproductive health services” — a move that blurs the line between non-medical CPCs and actual abortion clinics, making it easier to conflate the two.
Trump’s Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, Harmeet Dhillon took it a step further in a recent interview on right-wing commentator Glen Beck’s podcast, claiming that lately, the “only violence” being committed is against the First Amendment “rights of speech and prayer” of anti-abortion protesters outside of abortion clinics. Dhillon then went on to ominously announce that:
Facilities … involving prenatal care are protected by the FACE Act and so we will be aggressively going after [the perpetrators of such crimes].
In other words, Trump’s DOJ has now openly declared war on repro rights protesters.
✅Quick fact check:
1. There has been no documented evidence of systemic violence from repro rights activists against sidewalk protestors outside abortion clinics. The overwhelming majority of repro rights advocacy efforts — particularly those involving clinic defense and patient escorts — have been peaceful, with a strong emphasis on safety, keeping tensions low, and de-escalation.
2. Again, CPCs do not provide prenatal care, they refer out pregnant patients for it. Recall that Trump’s DOJ silently ceded this point by changing “health care services” to “health services” on the FACE Act website.
💡Additional: For a rare, in-depth look at how abortion clinic patients actually feel about sidewalk protesters, see this study published by UCSF’s ANSIRH program.
The juxtaposition is striking: While CPCs have operated with near-total impunity for decades — as they mislead, harass, and endanger women seeking care — the moment they became targets of a handful of non-violent protests, the wheels of justice turn quickly, and new legislation is floated to enhance their protections. Meanwhile, the NAF’s 2023/2024 Violence and Disruption Report shows that abortion providers continue to face serious ongoing violence and harassment, despite the growing number of clinic closures and increasing barriers to abortion access across many areas.
It’s an absurd hypocrisy perfectly highlighting the Forced Birth Industrial Complex’s twisted priorities: the appearance of protecting life (symbolized by CPCs) often trumps the reality of protecting living, breathing people.
Conclusion: A radical vision in sheep’s clothing
Behind the soft lighting and gentle smiles of a crisis pregnancy center lies a hard truth: CPCs are vehicles for a radical ideological project. They institutionalize Christian nationalist ideals in our healthcare and social systems, blurring the line between church and state by funneling public money into ministries disguised as clinics. Under the guise of “counseling,” they promote abstinence, reject contraception, and push a narrow religious worldview on a diverse society — threatening not just abortion access, but medical integrity and individual autonomy.
For the woman seeking help, the harm is immediate: misinformation, delay, trauma. For communities, the damage accumulates: misused tax dollars, weakened public health infrastructure, and the normalization of deception and government overreach in the name of doctrine. At scale, CPCs reinforce a vision of women as child-bearers under male authority — a patriarchal pillar of Christian nationalism — rolling back decades of progress in gender equality and reproductive freedom. And it doesn’t end with abortion. Many CPC operators are also openly hostile to contraception, LGBTQ rights, and secular governance.
As this series continues, one thing is clear: Crisis pregnancy centers are not “just another option.” They are the tip of the iceberg in a movement intent on reshaping American law and life through fundamentalist doctrine — using deception, coercion, and taxpayer funding to do it.
Read the second installment of this series, Gospel & Gavel: The Legal & Political Infrastructure Smuggling Anti-Abortion Ideology into Law.
Feeling a bit of rage now? Want to help? Go to Expose Fake Clinics and check out their “Take Action” menu for several ways to combat CPC misinformation. Also, subscribe to my Substack! Along with other reproductive justice advocates, I’m organizing a new public education campaign around CPC deception aimed at reaching the broader populace. More to come!
Fueled by green smoothies and Gen X grit, Colleen Luckett is part literary witch, part intersectional feminist warrior calling out forced birthers, capitalist co-opters, and faux-feminists — strong-willed, justice-rooted, and done playing nice with fascists. You can find her on most of the social platforms, including The Abortionfluencer Podcast, at theabortionfluencer (be sure to drop the “in”! ).
Crisis pregnancy centers aka FAKE CLINICs target our most marginalized and underserved communities. If abortions aren’t safe, then neither are you! Abortion is healthcare. Stand With Abortion Now ✊🏼🦢💕
I just read the first part of Colleen Luckett’s series, and it’s seriously impressive—well-researched, honest, and free of the usual attacks you see in this kind of writing–in this case, I would approve of. She lays out the facts about the Forced Birth Industrial Complex (FBIC) in a clear, straightforward way that shows how dangerous and damaging their agenda is and how women are suffering, even dying, because of their malfeasance. Colleen backs everything up, and I’m sure she welcomes readers to see the truth for themselves. We need the truth if we’re ever going to fix what’s broken and make this country work for everyone. I believe that if enough people read this powerful indictment of the FBIC, it will motivate them to speak up and help stop this injustice now. I can’t wait for the next installment. Peace.