Students for Reproductive Justice Joins Protestors Against Anti-abortion Clinics

Members from eight pro-abortion groups, including the event sponsor, Reproductive Transparency Now, gathered in front of the Union League Club of Chicago downtown Sept. 26, to protest against the Aid for Women fundraising event being held inside.

Protesters held signs reading “Stop Fake Clinics” and spoke into megaphones as they marched in a circle along the side of the building. One man wore a sign reading “Keep Abortion Legal (without apology)” around his neck while he hit a drum — the sound echoing off the city walls, emphasizing each syllable the group shouted.

Lisa Battisfore, founder and president of Reproductive Transparency Now, stood in the center of the group leading the protesters.

“Two, four, six, eight, shut down fake clinics in every state!” Battisfore chanted.

Among the protesters were two members of Loyola’s Students for Reproductive Justice club, Ella Hansen, a fourth-year majoring in biology and women and gender studies, and Meyah Chery, a fourth-year majoring in social work.

The club, widely known for its “free condom Friday” events, has a handful of initiatives across campus focusing on sexual and reproductive health, including Txt Jane, easy emergency contraception and, their newest addition, the harm reduction committee.

“Putting up protests, like this, and making sure that people have the right information out there is super important,” Hansen said.

As the protesters continued chanting outside, attendees for the Aid for Women fundraiser began to trickle into the Union League Club of Chicago building, dressed in fitted suits and floor length dresses.

Aid for Women is a network of eight anti-abortion counseling centers in the Chicago area whose general aim is to prevent abortions in line with their religious ideology. Protesters criticized the centers, calling them “fake abortion clinics.”

Executive Director for Aid for Women Susan Barrett wrote in an email to The Phoenix protesters referred to them as “fake” because they don’t provide abortion referrals. 

“As a Catholic organization, [abortions and abortion referrals are] something we would never do, and that makes us no different than any other Catholic healthcare provider,” Barrett wrote. “We don’t call Loyola University Medical Center a “fake hospital”, do we?”

The centers offer free pregnancy tests and ultrasounds, confidential consultations, abortion pill reversal, medical and community referrals, support programs and maternity homes, according to the Aid for Women website.

“Founded in 1978 on the faith and teachings of the Catholic Church, our mission is to provide emotional, practical and spiritual support to women experiencing difficult or unplanned pregnancies,” Barrett wrote. 

Battisfore said they do this by using anti-abortion propaganda to convince patients to choose alternative options — regardless of what the patient wants or needs. 

“These places are really deceiving and that’s the whole point of them,” Hansen said. “They tell women or anyone looking to get an abortion that they’re here to support them, but then in reality, they’ll take them away from getting an abortion.”

The ultrasounds are also used to convince a patient to choose life by connecting the patient to their fetus, according to the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates. All ultrasounds at Aid for Women locations are performed by a certified sonographer and reviewed by their Medical Director, a board-certified OB-GYN, according to Barrett. 

The pro-abortion groups leading the Sept. 26 protest were present to raise awareness on the nature of Aid for Women, for those unaware, according to Battisfore. 

“Even if we can get them thinking for just a minute about, ‘Why would someone be protesting this?’” Battisfore said. “That could be really important. Even just to get them to second guess.”

Some attendees attempted to turn a blind eye to the protesters, looking only at the guard greeting them at the door, while others stared at the scene. The protesters and fundraiser attendees had no physical or verbal interactions.

This was the third year Reproductive Transparency Now protested the Aid for Women’s Annual Benefit Dinner. Tickets to the event were sold at $300 a seat, with table sponsorships going for as much as $10,000, according to the Aid for Women donor website.

Barrett said there were around 350 attendees in total, including three Catholic bishops at the event. The night included a reception beginning at 5:30 p.m., with the dinner and programming beginning at 6:30 p.m. The organization’s Praesidium Vitae — defender of life — award was also presented at the event. 

In 2023 Aid for Women’s total revenue equated to $2,592,679. Of that amount, $2,516,803 came from “contributions and grants,” according to Aid for Women’s 2023 Form 990, the tax document for non-profit organizations.

Over half of that revenue, $1,339,629, went back to Aid for Women through “salaries, other compensation, employee benefits.” 

“All of this money that they’re spending and bringing in is going into their own pockets versus actually helping anybody,” Battisfore said. “It’s a huge waste of money and an affront to justice and bodily autonomy.”

Last year, Aid for Women opened three new locations in the Chicago area, according to Battisfore. One is their Edgewater location, situated a half mile south of Loyola’s Lake Shore Campus. Battisfore said she thinks this location is no accident.

Battisfore said young people such as college students, people with less socioeconomic standing and people of color are the groups anti-abortion counseling centers target the most. These demographics struggle to attain real healthcare options because of limiting factors such as transportation to clinics and high costs.

Coupled with a lack of information regarding these centers, this can make a free appointment with an anti-abortion counseling center appealing, according to Battisfore. 

Once a patient enters the anti-abortion clinic their experiences can largely vary and Battisfore said it comes down to the intention of the childbearing person.

“Their ideal client is what they term an ‘abortion-minded woman,’” Battisfore said. “They are really going to then kind of hit you with some of their anti-abortion propaganda.”

Many of the tactics include providing patients with false and misleading information concerning abortions, psychological manipulation and delays to providing care until after the legal abortion period, according to The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.  

In addition, many anti-abortion counseling centers aren’t regulated to the same standards as abortion clinics because they’re usually not run by licensed medical professionals or established as licensed medical institutions, according to the AMA Journal of Ethics.

All licensed medical clinics are bound by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which established protections on personal medical information, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 

However, since many anti-abortion counseling centers aren’t official medical institutions, they aren’t required to follow HIPAA regulations, which can lead to issues with patient confidentiality.

“They have no obligation to protect your personal data,” Battisfore said. “Anything you tell them, they can do anything they want with.”

There are nearly 2,500 anti-abotion counseling centers around the country, according to Reproductive Transparency Now. Their website links a tracker, The Crisis Pregnancy Center Map, created by faculty members at the University of Georgia, of anti-abortion counseling centers across the U.S. 

While abortion is currently legal in the state of Illinois up to fetal viability, according to the Chicago Department of Public Health, Hansen and Chery said advocacy work on the issue isn’t over. 

“I think we’re lucky in Illinois to be able to have the legislature on abortion that we do have,” Hansen said. “Keeping it that way is important.”

Chery said she believes it’s more important than ever to pay attention to the ballot and vote on abortion in elections. Abortion will be on the ballot in at least 10 states this year, including Missouri, New York and Maryland, according to KFF, an independent source for health policy research. 

“I’m very passionate about [abortion care] because it’s just another medical procedure,” Chery said. “I don’t think that it should be seen as something that is taboo.”

Correction: This story was updated Oct. 4 to include information from Executive Director for Aid for Women Susan Barrett about the Annual Benefit Dinner, Aid for Women’s mission and ability to perform ultrasounds at their locations.