What Are Crisis Pregnancy Centers? 

As the fight for reproductive rights goes on locally and nationally, communities should be aware of crisis pregnancy centers in their neighborhoods. 

Crisis pregnancy centers, also called CPCs, faith-based non-profit organizations that provide various reproductive services including pregnancy testing, ultrasounds, medical exams, birth control and STD testing and treatment.

They have numerous resources on their main website and provide locations for Baby Boxes, places where people can surrender newborn babies anonymously. 

They can either be buildings or mobile clinics, but their services remain the same and remain free. 

CPCs outnumber Planned Parenthood buildings 11-7 in Milwaukee, and Planned Parenthood has deemed them “fake clinics.” 

CPCs are often placed nearby Planned Parenthood buildings, with some like Alliance Family Services on Water St. being placed directly in front of one. 

Thousands of CPCs exist in the United States, and their locations can be found on websites such as crisispregnancycentermap.com and reproaction.org. 

CPCs Are Not Abortion Clinics 

Only two out of the 11 CPCs located in Milwaukee clearly state that they do not perform abortions on their websites. 

The centers also typically lack licensed medical professionals despite some locations claiming they perform medical exams, according to Reproductive Justice Action-Milwaukee’s website on the subject.

The Crisis Pregnancies website claims that having an abortion “almost doubles breast cancer risks” and having two or more further increases it, listing American Life League and the Elliot Institute as their sources. 

Studies like those done by Gillian K Reeves, et al. and organizations like the American Cancer Society state that there is no substantial evidence that abortions increase the risk of breast cancer in women at all.

However, these studies haven’t stopped pro-life organizations and their leaders from pushing that narrative. 

The president of Alliance Family Services in Kenosha, Wis. is Joel Davis, a devout Christian that has been very vocal about his opposition to abortion. In 2025, he wrote an address to the North Dakota House of Representatives in support of the North Dakota Prenatal Equal Protection Act, an anti-abortion bill. 

The bill aimed to extend the legal definition of “human being” to include fertilized ovum, or egg. On the North Dakota Can website, it states that “Criminalizing the conduct of murdering babies by abortion shows love for women and a desire for their good because it would deter many law-abiding women from making the decision to kill their child…]. 

HB 1373 was shot down in 2025 with representatives voting 77-16 against it. 

With strong ties to different churches in and outside of Wisconsin, the belief systems of the employees of the centers heavily bleed into their work.  

To find clinics that offer abortion care, go to Abortion Finder or Planned Parenthood. 

Activists Fight Back 

Multiple activist groups have spoken out against the practices of CPCs, including Reproductive Justice Action-Milwaukee. 

RJA-M’s current campaign is focused on local CPCs. The group runs cpcsoutofmke.com, a website that advocates against the centers and has a multitude of sources on the subject. 

“Public outreach is definitely one of our main concerns right now,” said Andrea Waters, co-chair of RJA-M. “We don’t want people to be shamed into, or manipulated, into making a decision that they actually don’t want to make.” 

“When we do our pickets outside of the CPCs, we like to provide alternative resources to get free diapers, get any sort of support,” said Waters. 

Waters also cited the Trump administration’s altering of Title IX as another attack on reproductive rights. 

According to Politico, the tens of pages long document have no mentions of contraceptive use other than stating that it is “overprescribed, has negative side effects and is part of a broader ‘overreliance on pharmaceutical and surgical treatments’.” 

“They’re actually looking to divert funding from legitimate clinics that offer abortions to CPCs through Title IX guidelines in 2027,” said Waters. 

Formed in 2022, RJA-M remains an active advocacy organization working to make Milwaukee an abortion sanctuary. 

The group is also working with Representative Lisa Subeck (D-Madison) and Senator LaTonya Jackson (D-Milwaukee) on the SAFEGUARD Act that will put more restrictions on CPCs.  

The bill will require that unregulated pregnancy centers obtain written permissions from the people they service and disclose any data breaches to them.  

The bill would also require that the CPCs disclose that they are not covered by HIPAA and not required to enforce it. 

It has been introduced but has not moved forward in the state legislature. 

Wisconsinites Are Funding Their Existence 

$123,800 of Wisconsin taxpayer money has gone towards funding CPCs since 2025, according to a map by Kelcie Moseley-Morris at States Newsroom. 

This is a stark contrast to Wisconsin’s neighboring state Minnesota, which repealed the public funding of these centers in 2023. 

Other states like Texas and Florida have poured $227 million and $93.4 million of taxpayer money respectively into funding CPCs, according to the same map. 

CPCs in Wisconsin also receive funding from the sale of “Choose Life Wisconsin” license plates. Choose Life Wisconsin is an anti-abortion non-profit organization that works to help unregulated pregnancy centers continue their work. 

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation showcases the license plate on their website. Purchasing one of these license plates gives buyers a yearly $25 tax-deductible contribution because of its affiliation with a non-profit. 

All of the CPCs in Milwaukee are listed on the Choose Life Wisconsin website. 

However, Wisconsinites aren’t footing the majority of the bill. 

CPCs in Wisconsin are primarily funded by anti-abortion groups such as Heartbeat International and the Abortion Pill Rescue Network, according to Waters. 

“The way you can tell is because they’ll have the same EIN, which is their tax-exempt number,” she said.