LOS ANGELES — Breanna Covington went to a crisis pregnancy center seven years ago to seek abortion services. She said she was met with scare tactics, judgment and inaccurate information. 

So she left a Yelp review.

“I left the review to let other people know, like let other women know, what this place is about,” Covington said. “Because after I left, I was like, ‘I don’t want anybody else to go through that.’”

After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, crisis pregnancy centers have become a flash point in California, which is preparing for a deluge of out-of-state women seeking access to abortion care. Stories like Covington’s are sparking proposals for change in Los Angeles — and mobilizing abortion-rights activists nationwide.

Sparking change

“These crisis pregnancy centers have been reported to lure women in with claims that they offer a full array of reproductive services, including abortion care, when, in fact, they don’t provide those services,” Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer said.

Feuer proposed a law on Aug. 4 that would prohibit a pregnancy center from misrepresenting the reproductive health services they offer, including abortion services, and provide people a private right of action if they are misled.

“Any center is entitled to express its opinion about the issue of choice,” Feuer said. “What it is not entitled to do is to mislead a woman … at a moment when every second can count and the truth counts.”

Susan Swift, the vice president of legal affairs with the Right to Life League, said the legislation is another attempt by California lawmakers “to silence the voice of pro-life.”

“I mean, it’s incredible to me that we are weaponizing our law to go after a viewpoint,” she said.

“They’ll tell you when you call, if you press them, they’ll say, ‘No, we don’t perform abortions,’” Swift said. “They’re not misrepresenting anything because they are Christian-based or because they are pro-life — because they refuse to provide abortions."

Covington’s experience

Covington, then 21, found Los Angeles Pregnancy Servies through a Google search for abortion providers.

Already a mother of a 6-month-old, she suffered from a condition called hyperemesis gravidarum, which causes persistent, severe nausea and vomiting during pregnancy. According to Covington, she knew she couldn’t take care of two children and go to school, and sought to terminate the pregnancy.

Covington soon learned LA Pregnancy Services did not provide abortion services or referrals. She said the center attempted to “scare” her by showing a video of a surgical abortion procedure and tried to “deter” her from terminating the pregnancy.

Covington said it wasn’t just the video that was jarring to her. She said the LA Pregnancy Center staff asked her guilt-ridden questions and told her she would become infertile. Covington, already struggling with the decision, said their words “twisted the knife."

LA Pregnancy Services did not respond to a request for comment. 

Ultimately, Covington terminated her pregnancy at another abortion services clinic and posted a Yelp review to warn other women. Now, nearly seven years later, Covington is a mother to two boys, a 7-year-old and a 10-month-old. 

Modern abortion-rights activism

Gen-Z for Change, a youth-led nonprofit, also took to Yelp to dispel misinformation surrounding crisis pregnancy centers, creating a spam tool that flooded anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers and anti-abortion tip lines with one-star reviews.

The tool is a part of the group’s five prong abortion access initiative, S.A.F.E.R., which is an acronym for spam, assist, fund, educate and register.

“Our overall goal with the spam initiative was not to disrupt any of the operations that they were doing,” said deputy executive director Victoria Hammett. “But to just bring transparency to people who are going to these centers and to just let them know that these centers do not provide abortions.”

Gen-Z for Change initiative specialist Claire Simon, who is 16 years old, said the nonprofit strives to make their initiatives as accessible as possible, empowering activists who may be too young able to vote or donate.

The tool went viral on social media, generating more than 20,000 reviews in less than a week. Yelp acted quickly to shut down the spam tool, placing an “Unusual Activity Alert” on the pages of some crisis pregnancy centers on the platform.

The company “condemns any attempts to mislead people seeking out abortion care,” a Yelp spokesperson said in a statement to Spectrum News but requires reviews on their site to reflect personal experiences and prohibits reviews that “focus overwhelmingly on non-consumer issues, such as a business’s political ideology.”

Feuer did not want to comment about Gen-Z for Change’s spam approach but said he believes strongly that bringing attention to the issue of potentially inaccurate information provided by pregnancy centers is “a very important thing to do” and is hopeful his proposal will do just that. 

Feuer’s proposal

As laws take effect prohibiting or severely restricting abortion services across the U.S., California expects to see an influx of out-of-state abortion patients.

Between 8,000 and 16,000 more people will travel to the state each year for abortion care, according to a June UCLA study. Of them, between 4,700 and 9,000 will come to LA County.

“It doesn’t get more fundamental than this if you are a woman in a moment of great turmoil and great emotion. This is a sensitive time for a woman when she is trying to grapple with her reproductive choices,” he said. “I can’t imagine a time when it’s more important for the city to be protective of her.”

Feuer’s office, under the proposed law, may seek up to $10,000 per violation, an injunction to prevent the dissemination of false advertising and restitution where necessary for women.

The proposal allows not only Feuer’s office to enforce it but also those who feel misled to seek damages.

The private cause of action mechanism within the ordinance, Swift said, will incentivize “spammers” and other “progressives” to target anti-abortion and faith-based centers. 

Swift said she believes the responsibility should be on the person seeking services to ask the right questions and find a provider who can provide the care they are looking for, especially in a state like California where “abortion is on demand.”