Two years after Roe v. Wade was overruled, the women in my life can’t help but fret: “What would reproductive health care look like in Maine under another term for Donald Trump?”
Former President Trump’s flip-flop stance on abortion continues to leave voters uncertain. After calling Florida’s six-week ban a “terrible mistake” in a Sept. 17, 2023 interview for NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Trump avoided endorsing a federal ban, saying, “from a legal standpoint, I think it’s probably better handled at the state level.”
Then, on Aug. 30, CNN reported that Trump would not support expanding abortion access in Florida due to backlash from anti-abortion advocates.
Division over the abortion debate can be felt throughout Maine; still, we’re thought of as a safe haven for citizens from surrounding states to find the medical care they deserve. For instance, Bangor’s only reproductive health care clinic providing abortion procedures, Mabel Wadsworth Center, shared in a Sept. 26 Instagram post that anti-abortion protestors are gearing up for an intimidation campaign outside the clinic.
The post reads, “In the 40 days leading up to Election Day in November, anti-abortion protestors stand on Mount Hope Ave with misleading and stigmatizing signs, protesting Mabel Wadsworth Center and the essential care and services we provide.”
The onslaught centers like Mabel Wadsworth face extends beyond protestors, and the tactics are more aggressive than many realize. A quick search for “abortion clinics in Maine” will return over a dozen facilities, all supposedly offering women’s health services and support.
However, many of the local clinics advertised are run by Christian organizations who list themselves as reproductive health care providers, adamant on running Maine’s three real abortion providers out of operation—Maine Family Planning, Planned Parenthood of Northern New England and the Mabel Wadsworth Center.
Fake clinics, often called “crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs)” or “women’s resource centers,” deceive by mimicking the exterior of legitimate reproductive health care clinics. They send advocates to stand outside actual clinics to guilt-trip patients and then redirect them to their religiously affiliated organizations.
According to information collected by the Maine Democratic Socialists of America Abortion Rights Working Group in Aug. 2023, “Twelve of 13 fake clinics in Maine are within three miles of real abortion providers, and six of these clinics are less than 1 mile away from real health care centers,” making the redirection process easy.
CPCs also use veiled language on their websites to divert from their true nature. For instance, a CPC on Forest Avenue in Portland, Maine, named ABBA Women’s Choice, states on its website, “You have three options when it comes to your unplanned pregnancy: abortion, adoption and parenting. We provide education on all your options so you can make an empowered choice for yourself.”
ABBA is directly funded by Christchurch Portland, a Christian church that writes on its website that “ABBA Women’s Choice opens its doors to men and women whose lives have been changed due to an unplanned pregnancy. Many lives have been changed because women were empowered to choose life.”
Regardless of an organization’s political stance on abortion, there’s little moral explanation for purposeful deception in a nation that honors personal liberty. Some may see CPCs as harmless organizations advocating for another perspective on abortion, but they pose a real danger to pregnant people by delaying access to legitimate reproductive health care and preventing medically informed decisions surrounding pregnancy.
According to data reported by the CDC in 2019, “the majority of women who had abortions (57%) were in their 20s. Teens ages 13 to 19 accounted for 9% of those who had abortions.”
Among women ages 15 to 44 surveyed, there were “23.8 abortions per 1,000 non-Hispanic Black women; 11.7 abortions per 1,000 Hispanic women; 6.6 abortions per 1,000 non-Hispanic White women; and 13 abortions per 1,000 women of other races or ethnicities in that age range.”
“The effect of the decisions coming from this Supreme Court are devastating for this country, especially for the communities that are already facing inequalities. Communities of color, immigrants, people who are Black, Indigenous, young, queer and trans—which is why, as we move beyond Roe, we must center the experiences of people most impacted by systemic inequalities,” said Reproductive Health Care Provider Dr. Julia McDonald in front of Portland’s City Hall during a 2022 protest organized by PPH Maine Action Fund,
It’s time for the Maine community to collectively reject and protest CPCs, which target our most vulnerable communities to push forward a religious ideal.
