Fake ‘crisis pregnancy centres’ run by right-wing religious groups use ‘deception and manipulation’ to trick vulnerable women

Taxpayer scam: ‘No charity should be in the business of deceiving people who are considering an abortion and possibly delaying them from seeking health-care’

The ad on the bus stop bench in front of Chilliwack Senior Secondary School has been there for many months, maybe years: “Cherish Women’s Resource Centre.” It includes a logo with arms forming a heart, hands clasping with the words “Pregnant? Unplanned? Here to help.”

The location in front of a high school where the ad is seen daily by hundreds of teenage girls is no coincidence. 

But while “The Cherish Project” claims to be there to support girls and women with information and guidance about reproductive health, in reality it is simply a group of non-medically trained evangelical Christians intent on misleading vulnerable young women into doing what church fathers say they should do with their bodies. 

You know the script: be quiet, make babies.

Many find it shocking that an evangelical/reformed Christian organization that campaigns to restrict women’s access to health-care is increasingly misleading about their activist intentions, outright lying in its propaganda spread to vulnerable young females, and has tax-free status in Canada, but most don’t know about it because of the charade. 

Welcome to the 40-year-old Chilliwack Pro-life Society, an anti-reproductive rights chameleon that even shares lies about what the society is on its own website, in marketing materials, and on advertisements. 

Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC) executive director Joyce Arthur has been lobbying the federal government for years to remove the charitable status that crisis pregnancy centres (CPCs) such as Cherish enjoy, and to force them to be more transparent about the services they do not provide as a first step to reign in the “inherent dishonesty” of these anti-choice agencies.

“No charity should be in the business of deceiving people who are considering an abortion and possibly delaying them from seeking health-care,” Arthur told Something Worth Reading recently.

A misogynous chameleon

On March 3, 1980, 15 conservative religious men met at a home in Chilliwack to discuss the fact that some women in Canada were so impertinent as to make their own decisions about their own bodies. By June of 1980, they formed a constitution and the “Chilliwack Pro-Life Society” was born.

The Roman Catholic Church of Chilliwack donated a building to begin the campaign. In the early days, the male-led campaign even took over the board of the Chilliwack General Hospital Society to stop doctors and nurses from providing reproductive health-care services to women. Luckily, this anti-democratic hijacking of the board was seen for what it was and electing boards this way was abandoned.

In 1981, those behind Chilliwack Pro-Life Society shifted tactics to be less overt, instead trying to hide in the weeds to more subtly make life difficult for vulnerable women. They started the Chilliwack Crisis Pregnancy Centre. What used to be middle-aged white men standing on street corners with signs shaming females for controlling their own bodies, changed into a subtler disinformation campaign to target women and girls in crisis. 

It was a Machiavellian move that worked, and CPCs across Canada continue to be permitted to mislead clients, accept millions of dollars in donations, and retain tax-free status, essentially existing under the radar as state-sanctioned patriarchy.

"Crisis pregnancy centres are by their very nature deceptive,” Teale Bondaroff of the B.C. Humanist Association (BCHA) told Something Worth Reading recently.

Bondaroff holds a PhD in politics and international studies from the University of Cambridge. He is research co-ordinator for the BCHA, and has worked with the organization that focuses on secularism and human rights in the public sphere. He has worked with the BCHA on, among other things, its campaigns to unmask CPCs and remove their charitable status.

“These fake clinics prey on people in vulnerable situations, and their entire purpose is to dissuade people from choosing an abortion,” Bondaroff said. “To accomplish this, [they] rely on motivated counselling, deception, disinformation, omission, and manipulation. It's hard to pin down any one individual practice, as each CPC deploys their own special combination of deception and manipulation."

When the connection started to be made that the Chilliwack Crisis Pregnancy Centre was just a front for the Chilliwack Pro-Life Society (CPLS), they shifted again by changing the name to be even more abstract and meaningless: “The Cherish Project.”

Among the many pieces of subtle manipulation and outright disinformation perpetuated by the conservative Christian group is an ad for “Abortion Pill Rescue” ordering their “clients” to call a number or visit a website to magically reverse their abortions. Abortion pill reversal is an unproven and unethical regimen according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). 

It’s unscientific bunk.

“Facts are important, especially when it comes to policies and discussions that impact patients,” according to an ACOG explanation about “medication abortion.”

“Claims regarding abortion ‘reversal’ treatment are not based on science and do not meet clinical standards.”

Even when the CPLS links to a reliable external source, it misrepresents the content from that source. For example, the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada says “procedural abortions are very safe, medical abortions are also safe and effective,” while their U.S. counterpart ACOG explains that “abortion is a safe medical procedure.”

Yet the CPLS claims ”each type of abortion procedure comes with serious health risks,” and provide a link to MedlinePlus, a U.S. government health website that in fact says the opposite. The MedlinePlus web page the pro-life society’s website links to states: “An abortion procedure is very safe. It is very rare to have any complications.”

Election paused federal government crackdown

The BCHA has tracked CPCs and their disinformation and their unjust religious-based tax exemptions for years. According to a 2023 study on CPCs co-developed by the BCHA and ARCC, the CPCs aren’t as bad as they were in 2017, but the scam continues.

“We noticed some revealing changes in the data compared to ARCC’s original 2016 study of CPC websites,” according to then acting BCHA executive director Olivia Jensen in 2023 when the study came out. “CPCs are becoming increasingly vague on their websites, as well as providing less information and being more careful with their messaging. This makes it more difficult to determine if they have religious or anti-choice sentiments.”

Arthur of the ARCC said CPCs started to try to make themselves look more legitimate to government by hiding their anti-choice stance.

“Since 93 per cent of CPCs are registered charities, they are likely afraid of losing their charitable status due to the Liberal Party promise in 2021 to no longer allow anti-choice groups to be charities,” Arthur said.

There was a glimmer of hope in October 2024 when the federal government announced changes to require transparency from CPCs forcing them to admit they are actually just anti-choice advocacy groups.

“Concerns have been raised that some registered charities that offer reproductive health services to women, including pregnancy options counselling, may be spreading misinformation by presenting themselves as neutral, full-service pregnancy support service organizations when they are in fact anti-choice organizations that push women away from accessing the reproductive care of their choice,” according to a Department of Finance Canada backgrounder on the topic from Oct. 29, 2024.

“By concealing the true nature of their services, these anti-choice organizations are restricting the rights of vulnerable pregnant women to choose the reproductive care appropriate to them and their circumstances.”

To try to curb the propaganda from organizations such as the Chilliwack Pro-Life Society, the government introduced legislation to the Income Tax Act and the Income Tax Regulations – not yet passed – to require these religious activists with charitable status to disclose that they do not provide birth control or information on abortion services, despite calling themselves “pregnancy centres.”

“Under this legislation, a registered charity that provides reproductive health services would need to disclose if, at a minimum, it does not provide the contact information for an abortion services provider and a birth-control service provider.“

This could mean that the church-based Cherish Project would have to start being honest about the services they don’t provide. That includes messaging on advertisements, such as bus ads, posters, billboards, social media posts, or websites, put out by the charity or on the charity’s behalf. Cherish has a wrapped bus that, when not in use, is parked at the Bethel Netherlands Reformed Church parking lot on Broadway Avenue in Chilliwack in full view of students at adjacent Highroad Academy

“Where a charity fails to meet the requirements specified in the legislation, the Minister of National Revenue would be permitted to revoke its registration.“

So if the legislation is amended as suggested, the Chilliwack Pro-Life Society has to start being honest or lose charitable status, a real “Sophie’s Choice” – and not the biblical kind referring to “wisdom.” 

CPCs would not only have to start being somewhat transparent, they will be ordered to stop lying and fear-mongering. The Goderich Life Centre in Ontario, for example, features detailed, inaccurate descriptions of abortion methods and risks on its website and the page is filled with gruesome language and graphics designed to shock and horrify, according to the BCHA/ARCC study on CPCs. 

The study also addresses how the The Cherish Project “describes aspiration abortion as an act of bloody violence: ‘This is a surgical abortion… where a suction catheter is inserted into the mother’s womb to suction out the preborn baby, tearing its body into pieces. This is sometimes followed by sharp metal curette, which scrapes out any remains from the uterus.’”

Prominent among the brief FAQs on The Cherish Project website is this one: “What are the risk of abortion?” The answer: “Each type of abortion procedure comes with serious health risks.” A statement that is patently false, according to the science, affirmed by the American and Canadian obstetricians and gynecologists

Shift from outright lies to subtle manipulation

Religious leaders of organizations behind CPCs across Canada became aware their lies under the guise of charity were getting noticed, so since 2016 when the BCHA reported on massive amounts of disinformation, by 2023 there were fewer CPCs being so overt.

They tend to focus on and exaggerate perceived risks of abortion, which not only ignores the evidence that being denied an abortion has been shown to significantly impact both a person’s physical and mental health, but they also fail to acknowledge that having access to abortion can provide someone the opportunity to shape a more secure, healthier, and happier life for themselves, the children they may already have, and those they may have in the future. 

The problem still is that throughout the websites and marketing materials are phone numbers and email addresses for pregnant women to get in touch. On The Cherish Project website there is a link to make an appointment, where the women will then get the full dose of anti-science disinformation.

“This lack of transparency is a major concern, as it can result in potential clients being misled about a CPC’s intentions or biases, leaving individuals vulnerable to misinformation, manipulation, and delays when they do reach out to CPCs in-person or over the phone.” according to the 2023 report.

Will they stop?

While the amendments to the Income Tax Act were shelved when Parliament was prorogued, and the proposed law was not in the Liberal platform in the last election, it did show up in pre-budget consultations. 

“Recommendation 429: No longer provide charitable status to anti-abortion organizations,” was part of the Report of the Standing Committee on Finance, December 2024.

Better yet, to make the anti-science conservative religious folks pull their hair out is recommendation 430 right after that, which is to amend the Income Tax Act “to provide a definition of a charity which would remove the privileged status of ‘advancement of religion’ as a charitable purpose.”

Whether the elements will make it into the Liberal government’s November 2025 budget and/or withstand Charter challenges that are sure to come from well-funded conservative Christian organizations is yet to be seen.

A year ago, the BCHA called the federal government’s move to change income tax laws for the misleading CPCs a “step toward greater transparency.”

“This move is a significant step towards ensuring that organizations promoting harmful and misleading information about reproductive health cannot exploit charitable tax benefits,” according to the BCHA.

Time will tell.

-30-

Want to support independent journalism?
Consider becoming a paid subscriber or make a one-time donation so I can continue this work.

Paul J. Henderson
pauljhenderson@gmail.com
facebook.com/PaulJHendersonJournalist
instagram.com/wordsarehard_pjh
x.com/PeeJayAitch
wordsarehard-pjh.bsky.social