U.S. anti-abortion ideology on the move: Mobile crisis pregnancy centers as unruly, unmappable, and ungovernable

Abortion mobilities

“…Freeman (2020), Engle and Freeman (2022), and Thomsen et al. (2022) use Walter's (2015) concept of ‘viapolitics’, which shifts attention to the role of vehicles, roads and routes in political studies of migration, to discuss the mobility of abortion‐seekers, providers, activists, and opponents. Freeman argues that by studying abortion from this perspective, ‘it is possible to better understand how power works and what the possibilities for political action and social justice are’ (2020, p. 906).…”

“…Discussing the ‘unruly unmappability’ of unregulated mobile crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs), Thomsen et al. suggest that abortion mobilities are a ‘terrain of struggle, and one that is neither inherently oppressive nor liberatory’ (2022, p. 9). Both these gaps and emerging studies by Thomsen and other feminist political geographers highlight the generative potential of considering abortion mobility within political geography.…”

“…Reproductive justice is at the heart of much of the current activism and scholarship on abortion, which seeks to situate the question of abortion access 'within a holistic analysis of people's lives that examines the political and historic circumstances in which those lives are situated' (Gomez, 2016, p. 52). Abortion geographers draw on reproductive justice to move discussions of abortion access beyond questions of its legality (Thomsen et al, 2022), and to question whether abortion travel can accurately be described as a 'choice' (Freeman, 2020;Kelly, 2016). Moreover, legal geographers have employed reproductive justice to consider abortion regulations and the 'more intricate and often "invisible" realities of gender, poverty, rurality, and immigration status, as well as the intersections among these' (Statz & Pruitt, 2019, p. 1107.…”

“…Discussions of the 'rural' are often reduced to the notion of physical distance without considering how rurality shapes or intersects with abortion mobilities or how concepts such as space, place, and scale affect abortion access (Pruitt, 2007(Pruitt, , 2008. In addition, recent work highlights that attention to anti-abortion activism is just as important as reproductive justice and pro-choice activism to advancing our understanding of the abortion landscape (Thomsen, 2022;Thomsen et al, 2022). Discussing the 'unruly unmappability' of unregulated mobile crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs), Thomsen et al suggest that abortion mobilities are a 'terrain of struggle, and one that is neither inherently oppressive nor liberatory' (2022, p. 9).…”

Animating and sustaining outrage: The place of crisis pregnancy centers in abortion justice

“…Key to this chipping away have been crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs)—religiously motivated, anti-abortion non-profit organizations that critics describe as “fake women's health clinics.” The anti-abortion movement dedicates more volunteers, volunteer hours, and resources to CPCs than all other forms of anti-abortion activism combined (Munson, 2008: 157). Indeed, CPCs exist in more than half of U.S. counties (Swartzendruber and Lambert, 2020), and most people encounter CPCs on a regular basis through their paid targeted advertisements for free pregnancy tests, posts on social media, abstinence-only sexual health education, and mobile units (Thomsen et al, 2021).…”