Graduation Year

2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

M.A.

Degree Name

Master of Arts (M.A.)

Degree Granting Department

Anthropology

Major Professor

Nancy Romero-Daza, Ph.D.

Co-Major Professor

Richard Powis, Ph.D.

Committee Member

David Himmelgreen, Ph.D.

Keywords

abortion access, pronatalism, reproductive justice, secret shopper study

Abstract

Anti-Abortion Centers (AACs) pose a grave threat to the reproductive health outcomes of Americans. Disguising themselves as licensed health clinics, AACs target vulnerable communities to prevent or delay abortion care through the spread of medical misinformation, contributing to abortion stigmatization. Situated in a state with a near-total abortion ban, this secret-shopper study aimed to understand the ways in which AACs in Tampa, Florida communicate anti-abortion rhetoric to pregnant people seeking abortions. Under the guise of people who suspect they are pregnant searching for abortion care, the main researcher and her assistants conducted the first phase of the study through 25 phone calls to centers around the state, followed by a second phase of 4 visits to centers located in Hillsborough County, Florida.

Inductive thematic analysis of fieldnotes taken after phone calls and site visits revealed six key themes: AAC personnel’s aversion to saying the word abortion (“The A word”), deceptive advertisements about the types of services provided (“bait and switch”), increases in funding but little to no services offered in the centers (“funding over function”), paternalistic tendencies of commandeering decision making (“savior complex”), weaponizing biomedicine as a means of conveying legitimacy (“medicalization of abortion”), and the collection of person information with no guarantees of confidentiality (“preying on privacy”). Together, these themes demonstrate AAC’s propensity for stripping people of their autonomy through religious and moral manipulation. If left unchecked, AACs will continue to heighten existing reproductive health disparities prevalent in the United States. In a political climate supportive of pronatalist, neoliberal, pseudoscientific organizations, additional research and activism are needed to identify litigation strategies to hold AACs accountable.

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