This program me contains some scenes
which some viewers may find upsetting.
This is Claire, she's pregnant and about to go undercover...
Are you ready?
...investigating crisis pregnancy advice centres.
If you feel like it's getting too much, just leave.
Hi, it's Lissa and Ella.
There are dozens of these centres in the UK claiming to provide
support with unplanned pregnancies.
We reveal evidence some centres are giving misleading advice.
Accused of persuading women not to have abortions.
Crisis pregnancy centres are not upfront about who they are
and what they're there to do.
No-one else should be made to feel how I felt that clay.
So how many women like me has there been?
I'm on my way to meet a woman who contacted me
about her experience with a crisis pregnancy advice service.
She was 25 when she became pregnant last year.
It was absolutely unplanned, unexpected.
Ancl I think I was unprepared for having to deal with that.
I googled pregnancy crisis line or pregnancy helpline,
just to talk to somebody for impartial advice.
Ancl I found Pregnancy Crisis Helpline.
The Pregnancy Crisis Helpline says
it's supported more than 2,000 women in the last year.
But Melanie was unhappy with the advice she got.
There were things that were with an aim to make me question
why I wanted to have an abortion, whether I should.
She definitely did some fear- mongering around the process
of a medical abortion,
"you can heavily bleed for months on end."
She had said about the likelihood of me being infertile after having
an abortion and she said, "You'll always be a mother,"
and whilst that is something that I disagree with,
that does stay with you.
I was appalled. I was angry.
It made me not want to call anyone else for advice
that wasn't someone I knew.
Despite her experience, Melanie went ahead with an abortion.
The Pregnancy Crisis Helpline says it supports women in a safe,
it works hard to offer women
the highest possible standard of support,
and since it started, it's had two complaints
and thousands of grateful clients.
Abortions have been available on the NHS in England,
Scotland and Wales, for more than 50 years.
Today the NHS also funds abortions through providers
like MSI Reproductive Choices.
Medicine is all about informed choice.
Ancl abortion care is exactly the same as any other field
of medicine like that.
But you can only come to the right decision for what's best
for you in your circumstances if you have good quality,
unbiased information.
Crisis Pregnancy Centres operate outside the NHS.
We found 57 advertising online.
Most say they don't refer women for abortions.
They say they offer support and information.
I think the common thread that runs through them is that they intercept
and grab women who are struggling with the decision as to
whether they want to move forward with an abortion or not.
We wanted to find out more.
We contacted all 57 centres, posing as women wanting
information about our options, including abortion.
Hello.
Hi, there.
I recently found out that I'm pregnant and it's come
as a massive shock and I just...
34 of the centres offered impartial support and directed us to the NHS.
Two wouldn't speak to us without a positive pregnancy test.
21, more than a third, gave worrying advice.
There's new evidence that abortion may increase
the susceptibility to breast cancer.
The majority of women will get Post Abortion Syndrome in some way.
You'll take the two tablets and that will kill the baby in the womb,
and you will bleed out.
To investigate further, I decide to go undercover
and make appointments at three of the 21 centres.
First, Crossroads Crisis Pregnancy Centre.
It says its trained counsellors provide
free and accurate information.
It opened in 2005 and is based in a Baptist Church.
I'm going to say I'm three weeks pregnant.
Hiya, I'm here to see someone called Glossyna.
Yeah, that's me.
Oh, hello.
Hi, there, have you got a toilet here that I could quickly...?
Yes, you can.
I'm taken into a room by Glossyna who says she's a counsellor.
Wow.
We showed our secretly filmed footage to Dr Jonathan Lord,
who also speaks for the Royal College of Obstetricians
and Gynaecologists, andjo Holmes
from the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.
Because you've got to kill the baby...
It's not about an unplanned pregnancy.
It's about a baby.
You know, it's not a baby when you've got a choice.
It's a pregnancy.
It's an unplanned pregnancy or unintended pregnancy,
or an unwanted pregnancy.
It was just immediately diving in with that laden language.
To get rid of it...
Glossyna says she's not here to tell me what to do.
Then describes what she says are the risks of having an abortion.
Mm.
A lot of what was in there was just simply false.
There is no increased risk of infertility,
the risk of haemorrhage is minimal.
From, you know, a professional standards point of view,
as a counsellor, they're not there to advise, they are not
there to guide, and they are so not there to give their opinion.
Neither Crossroads Crisis Pregnancy Centre nor Glossyna responded
to our request for comment.
Of the 57 centres we looked into,
32 made their religious affiliations clear.
And 20 of them provided impartial advice.
Next, Tyneside Pregnancy Advice Centre.
It says it has a Christian ethos and is committed
to providing a caring, compassionate,
and professional service.
We have a mandate, don't we?
From God to do something...
Dr Chris Richards is an NHS Paediatrician
and the director of the centre.
...and deliver those who are drawn towards death and hold back those
stumbling to the slaughter.
WE know what's going on...
Here he explains how the use of ultrasound scans
in Crisis Pregnancy Centres in America has helped convince women
there not to have abortions.
The power of ultrasound amongst the population, particularly
in the States, has had a profound effect.
The heartbeat appears at three weeks and five or six clays.
It's the size of a poppy seed but it doesn't look like that on the scan
because you see this quite big image going at about sort of
100, 120 beats per minute.
Crisis pregnancy centres in the UK
are very much model led on crisis pregnancy centres in the US.
Are very much model led on crisis pregnancy centres in the US.
They employ the same tactics to try to deter women
from accessing services.
Katherine O'Brien is an Associate Director at
The British Pregnancy Advisory Service,
one of the UK's main abortion providers.
They will share similar literature and messaging to women
and crucially they employ tactics around the use
of ultrasounds and will try to force women to, say,
listen to the heartbeat or see an ultrasound image
in order to prevent her from undergoing an abortion.
I decide to visit
the Tyneside Pregnancy Advice Centre, undercover.
Is the equipment working?
Yeah, this is now recording.
I'm going to say I'm married with two children
and I'm pregnant again.
I meet Audrey, who I'm told is an advisor.
Mm.
Audrey gives me a leaflet about what the centre says
are the risks of having an abortion.
Yeah.
OK, from a clinical perspective,
yes, infection is always a risk with anything you do,
including not doing anything or carrying on with the pregnancy,
so it's always a balance.
But leaving it in the way she did about "how will
"you tell your daughters?"
It's extraordinary.
It's going straight for the guilt button.
Yeah.
This is about this woman's unique experience that she owns,
not the counsellor.
It's the woman's experience and I think she's just trying
to manipulate the conversation to her end really.
Audrey says if I'm considering an abortion
I should consult the NHS website.
But she also encourages me to have an ultrasound scan
and shows me the room where they're carried out.
I leave, saying I'll think about having a scan.
Scans are a tool, they can be very useful in some circumstances,
but they can actually be quite intrusive in others.
But we're doing it for a reason.
A medical reason.
We're doing it because we want to measure something.
But in the context here, it's designed to cause guilt.
You know, that's why they're doing it,
they're trying to manipulate the emotions.
It's the last thing you'd want to see or hear.
Dr Chris Richards says the Tyneside Pregnancy Advice Centre
"has a 14-year track record of compliance with all its
regulatory obligations" and that "over 1,200 women have benefitted
from the work of its staff and volunteers".
He says anyone reading its website can see
where it's coming from and it's "not a campaigning organisation".
Audrey didn't respond to our request for comment.
CHANTING
The Supreme Court has just overturned five decades
of the constitutional right to an abortion
for women across the country.
Now millions of women will have lost that right.
Last summer, abortion laws in the US were radically changed.
It's no longer a legal right to have an abortion in every state.
Three more states have now officially banned abortion services.
There are no exceptions under this new law for rape or incest.
The only exceptions are for medical emergencies.
In the US, one of the most influential anti-abortion groups
is Stanton International.
It's set up five crisis pregnancy centres there.
Life-affirming medical clinics such as Stanton Health Care
are revolutionising women's medical care
and providing a true choice for women.
Stanton International opened a centre in Belfast
called Stanton Health Care in 2015,
four years before abortion was legalised in Nothern Ireland.
Its website says it's a safe place
where women are empowered to make their best choice.
When mother-of-five Ashleigh found out she was pregnant in 2021,
she called Stanton Health Care
believing they could help her with an abortion.
It was made quite clear to them that that's what I wanted and they didn't
ask me did I want anything else.
They told me that they would sort it out for me and that there would be
support, there would be counselling for, for afterwards.
But when she turned up for an appointment, she was told
she needed an ultrasound scan.
It revealed she was pregnant with twins.
Ancl they were doing the scan and I had my head the other way,
and they kept telling me to look and look and look and look at
the scan, and I wouldn't look at it.
Ancl she said, "These are your babies," and I was like, "Oh, God."
So obviously I looked.
Ancl I'd seen the two wee babies on the screen.
Ancl I told her, you, know what's going on,
"I'm here because I want an abortion."
I wiped me own jelly off and left the room.
That was enough for me.
Ashleigh went ahead with the abortion and says
it was the right decision for her.
But the experience at Stanton Health Care had a lasting impact.
Mentally after that, I don't think I've ever been the same.
I shouldn't have to be in so much pain.
I want to go undercover.
But Stanton Health Care says it'll only see women
who provide a positive pregnancy test on site.
So, Claire, who's ten weeks into a planned pregnancy,
agrees to help us.
If she really wanted an abortion, she'd only have two weeks to get
one, because in Northern Ireland, abortion's only legal
up to 12 weeks, unless there's a medical emergency.
Hi, Claire, I'm Div ya.
Honestly, we can't thank you enough for helping us,
because this is not an easy task.
Really that's what intrigued me, the fact that you were focusing
on a key issue that women face, that they would not want
to speak about openly.
Look, there's Stanton right there on the right.
Look the windows are completely blacked out.
You can't see anything. It looks like it's open, though.
How are you feeling?
Yeah, I'm slightly nervous.
You do not have to stay in there and you can
pull out at any point.
Are you OK?
Yeah.
Ready? Yeah.
Good luck.
Claire's calling herself Lissa
and goes in with one of our producers.
Hi, it's Lissa and Ella.
In the waiting room, Claire is introduced to Anne,
who says she's an advisor.
They won't see Claire with me.
What's in here?
The camera.
When you go in, what you need to do is put this on your lap.
Post-abortion syndrome, is that a thing?
No. It is completely made up.
There is no evidence for it whatsoever.
Almost none of that whatsoever was rooted in reality,
that it's a powerful female hormone.
That's nonsense.
Ancl then she sort of carries on about passing it.
Well, it is true that the process of having a medical abortion
is worse than, you know, having a heavy period, for example.
It's stalling, it's just tick-tock, tick-tock, time is going on.
You know, that woman is almost going to be coerced
sort of into keeping the pregnancy.
Anne says the centre can provide financial help and after-care
to women who go ahead with their pregnancies.
Claire leaves agreeing to come back for a scan.
On the way out she's given several leaflets.
What really struck me with these leaflets are that if I did
decide to get an abortion,
they said that I could get breast cancer, which is scary.
But this one is quite traumatising.
I literally do not want to look at it.
It's got babies that are basically aborted
and the pictures are very graphic. I can't even look at it.
The images are too graphic to show,
but Dr Jonathan Lord and jo Holmes agree to look at them.
It's pretty horrific, isn't it?
They made this look like this is what happens in every abortion
and they've zoomed right up on it.
Ancl to just manifestly and deliberately
increase the distress they're going to get by showing them.
This is cruelty, and it's just so cruel.
What's your take on the risks?
Things like breast cancer?
This old chestnut about breast cancer.
There is no evidence for this.
It is entirely conjecture and designed to frighten people.
Two weeks later Claire returns for the ultrasound.
Hi, how are you?
They say they didn't think she'd turn up,
so there's no-one available to do the scan.
While Claire's there, a woman introduces herself as Iris.
She says she normally works on the helpline.
I later discover that her name is Bernadette Smyth,
founder of Precious Life,
one the largest anti-abortion campaign groups in Northern Ireland.
We vow in our efforts to make abortion unthinkable
and illegal again in Ireland, North and South,
and indeed through the world.
Bernadette Smyth told us her middle name is Iris
She says it's on her name tag
and there's nothing misleading about it.
Stanton International's Chief Operating Officer agreed
She was pressurised to look at the images of the pregnancy.
And last year opened a new centre in Scotland.
We would welcome more support for women experiencing unplanned
or unwanted pregnancies.
Ancl the most vulnerable women in our society absolutely
need greater support.
But crisis pregnancy centres are not the support that these women need.
The three crisis pregnancy centres we investigated undercover
are all registered charities.
The Charity Commission in Northern Ireland says
it's already looking into Stanton Health Care.
The Charity Commission in England says it's assessing the information
provided by this program me.
The Department of Health and Social Care says it's important
women facing unplanned pregnancies get impartial, accurate information.
But right now, if you visit a crisis pregnancy centre,
there's little or no regulation
of the quality of advice and counselling you might receive.
I think they're flying under the radar.
You know, they really should be regulated.
I think they're falling between a gap in the regulations.
It's not something that has left me or will ever leave me.
No-one else should experience what I experienced.
No-one else should be made to feel how I felt that clay.