Pro-life centers provide better services at lower cost than abortion clinics, study finds

Pro-life pregnancy centers offer better and less-expensive services than abortion facilities, according to recent study in the journal “Contraception”.

In particular, it found that pregnancy centers had shorter appointment wait times than abortion facilities and were considerably more likely to offer same-day appointments. Even more importantly, it found that abortion facilities frequently charge for pregnancy tests and ultrasounds while pregnancy help centers almost never charge for these services.

That’s not news to the hundreds of pro-life centers serving women from Kansas City to Miami and Los Angeles to Boston.

READ: Here are the pro-life clinics serving your community

The authors paired 445 abortion facilities with a nearby pregnancy help center. Data from all 50 states were collected and analyzed. The authors found that more than 68 percent of pregnancy help centers offered same-day pregnancy visits compared with only about 32 percent of abortion facilities. Furthermore, only a small percentage of the pro-life pregnancy centers included in the study charged for either pregnancy tests or ultrasounds. Conversely, at abortion facilities, the median price for a pregnancy test was $24, and the median price for an ultrasound was just over $162.

The authors also analyzed abortion facilities in 25 states with policy environments they deemed supportive of pregnancy help centers. Specifically, these 25 states provided either direct or indirect funding to pregnancy help centers or had legislation in place that required referrals to pregnancy help centers. In these states, abortion facilities had shorter wait times for pregnancy tests. They also, on average, charged less for both pregnancy tests and ultrasounds. Overall, it appears that competition from pregnancy help centers has an impact on abortion facilities.

“Contraception” is not a conservative academic journal. Many of the studies it publishes have a bias in favor of legal abortion and contraception use. Furthermore, the authors of the study are academics affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh, and none has a connection with a pro-life group.

“A liberal academic journal published an analytically rigorous study showing that pregnancy centers offer better and less costly services to women,” the story said. “Overall, this is a great testament to the nearly 3,000 pregnancy help centers in the United States that tirelessly provide life-affirming alternatives to pregnant women every day.”

–Dwight Widaman | Metro Voice