From the abstract of an article in Contraception Journal, What women seek from a pregnancy resource center:

Twenty-nine states enable taxpayer funding to go to pregnancy resource centers (PRCs, often called crisis pregnancy centers), which are usually antiabortion organizations that aim to dissuade women from abortion. Some abortion rights advocates have called for the elimination of PRCs. However, we know little about why women visit PRCs.

We analyzed deidentified intake survey data from first-time clients to a secular, all-options PRC located in Indiana between July and December 2015 on their reason(s) for seeking services, material resources provided and content of any peer counseling…

Clients went there mostly for free diapers and baby clothes.

Conclusion

PRC clients largely sought parenting, not pregnancy, resources. The underutilization of pregnancy-options counseling and high demand for parenting materials and services point to unmet needs among caregivers of young children, particularly for diapers. Our findings are limited in their generalizability to typical PRCs, which are conservative Christian and antiabortion. Nonetheless, our results suggest the need to rethink the allocation of resources toward funding or eliminating PRCs solely for the purpose of influencing women’s decisions about abortion.

Implications

Understanding the services women who go to PRCs seek (i.e. diapers and parenting support) can help women’s health advocates better meet those needs, notably in contexts that are nonjudgmental about women’s pregnancy decisions.

That’s the abstract of the actual study. Now for the news article about the study at Rewire, written by Nicole Knight Shine:

Study: Pregnant People Seek Diapers, Not Abortion Counseling

Clients most commonly sought diapers and baby clothes, the study said, with only four clients out of 273 asking about abortion services.

…

The fact that so few clients discussed abortion surprised the researchers, said co-author Katrina Kimport in a phone interview Thursday with Rewire.

…

Typically run by religious groups, CPCs often masquerade as reproductive health clinics with the primary goal of dissuading “abortion-minded” pregnant people.

…

Kimport noted that the work underscores that pregnant people are not making abortion decisions at these centers. Instead, as authors of the report indicate, pregnant people arrive at their decisions by conferring privately with family and friends.

The Rewire story on the study doesn’t use the word “women” once. Not once. The actual study uses it repeatedly, but the journalist reporting on the study does not use it once, and puts the phrase “pregnant people” into the mouth of one of the authors.

Women are being erased.