As an Infertile-American (at least, according to a doctor that one time—and, as you know, doctors are infallible) I have the luxury of never becoming pregnant. I’ve failed every pregnancy test I’ve ever taken with flying colors. I’ve never experienced the abject fear of knowing my body is filled with unwanted life. (And, in any imaginable circumstance, the primary emotion produced by pregnancy would certainly be fear. I can’t afford a child—hell, I can’t even afford to buy organic.)
In other words, if I were to ever become pregnant, I’d be a member of the economically vulnerable target demographic for crisis pregnancy centers: these mysterious places that number in the thousands all across the US, presenting themselves as medical offices while covertly intending to deceive pregnant women about the road that lies ahead.
Crisis pregnancy centers, often located near hospitals and Planned Parenthoods, advertise by purporting to give women “options,” up to and including the right to terminate their pregnancies. Their visual signposting and dominant language (“It’s Your Choice,” “Free Abortion Alternatives”) make them seem like safe havens for poor, disenfranchised gals desperate to exercise their right to choose and move on with their lives.
In reality, however, they’re often the opposite: disseminating misinformation and, in the process, robbing women of their autonomy. And the best worst part of the situation is the fact that plenty of crisis pregnancy centers, in spite of their duplicity, are actually licensed community clinics, which gives them an added air of respectability.
So, in the interest of trying to understand what actually goes on in these inexplicably legal establishments, I decided to go undercover as a preggers patsy.
Getting your hands on the urine of an expectant mother in order to pass it off as your own is harder than you think (although, I should say I didn’t try Craigslist, which might have been an easier, if much stranger, first stop). After months spent waiting for an appropriate hookup, the blessed day finally arrived. Feeling like Bob Woodward waiting for Deep Throat, I sat in my car eagerly anticipating that sweet, pregnant piss. It was warm when its creator handed it off to me, no doubt because it was tingling with the wonder and the majesty that is human life.
In order to double-check the potency, I went to a dollar store and bought a pregnancy test. The look of abject pity the cashier threw me could not be quantified, except perhaps in the free paper bag she gave me (normal cost: $0.10). Then the piss ended up passing the test.
Piss in hand, I headed to the “women’s clinic” I’d chosen to patronize, whose website URL had the word “abortion” in it. (The word was included to make it seem as though the clinic was a viable place to secure one.) Located within spitting distance of a Planned Parenthood and directly across the street from a community college, the building was generically drab, with frosted windows and a sign outside in Spanish that read, “GRATIS PRUEBA DE EMBARAZO” (“FREE PREGNANCY TEST”).
Inside, a certificate of congratulations from the L.A. County Board of Supervisors hung behind the front desk. A perky young nurse enquired as to what I was there for.
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