Doulas and Crisis Pregnancy Centers do not mix

Crisis Pregnancy Centers are non-profit facilities run by religious pro-life volunteers that position themselves as a medical facility offering support to pregnant women. They advertise that they offer support for women choosing abortion, adoption, and keeping their baby. Instead, they use abortion imagery, incorrect facts and statistics, sonograms, and coercion tactics to convince pregnant women to keep their babies. 

They lie to women. They assume that women are not strong and able enough to make their own choices about pregnancy.  They use false advertising and scare tactics to manipulate women into using their services.  They often name themselves something similar to a nearby abortion clinic to trick women. They try to fool women into thinking they're not pregnant so that they become too far along to legally abort. They discourage women from using some forms of birth control. They lie about the medical qualifications that they have. They disguise the outside of their buildings to look like abortion clinics. 

You absolutely cannot support one of these clinics by offering doula services to them.

A doula is a "woman who serves" by the Greek definition.  They believe in a woman's power to choose the best decisions for herself.  By using evidence-based medicine, they educate pregnant mothers about all of their options, trusting their ability to choose. They become a pregnant women's close support structure, someone that the woman can lean on and trust. 

As a doula, we are trained not to make medical suggestions and advice. We are trained to put our own religious and moral beliefs aside, and support a mother through any choice she may make. We are here to serve HER. She becomes our world. 

A doula would not manipulate a woman into making a choice. A doula would not coerce someone using scare tactics and misinformation. A doula would never attempt to influence a woman's choice with her own personal religious or political beliefs. A doula wouldn't deceive the woman she is working for and with, and wouldn't support an organization that does this regardless of their personal views.

You do not have to be pro-choice to see how crisis pregnancy centers are unethical, wrong, and are not at all aligned with our mission as doulas.