Deception and Reproductive Healthcare in Fort Collins
by Marley Lerner (she/they)
Fort Collins is a city rich with foothills, local restaurants, fun bars, and so much more. While Fort Collins is known for hosting a plethora of exciting and interesting things to do, the city is also the home of The Alpha Center. The Alpha Center is an anti-abortion counseling center (AACC), also known as a crisis pregnancy center. The tactics of AACCs are rooted in deception. They love to attract folx who are seeking abortion care, only to bombard them with misinformation about the abortion procedure, how far along they are, and how obtaining an abortion will harm their health.
Like many other centers in Colorado, the Alpha Center specifically targets college students, in a multitude of ways. First off, they are right across from CSU’s campus, on one of the busiest streets in Fort Collins. Secondly, they advertise on and off campus. When I was a sophomore moving into a new apartment, every apartment was given a door hanger advertising the free services that the Alpha Center provides. I almost went there once because the free services were enticing as a broke college student. Luckily I learned more about the organization before going there.
A friend of mine, we’ll call them X, was not so lucky. Years ago, when X was a student at CSU, they went to the Alpha Center seeking healthcare. Unfortunately, due to stigma and misinformation, their experience has had a lasting negative emotional impact on them. When I talked to X about their experience, I asked them how they heard about the Alpha Center. They responded that, after living in Fort Collins for 15 years, you just know it’s around, especially considering it’s on such a busy street. X also said that their ads for free STD/STI testing made them believe this was a good place to get this type of healthcare. However, X said that they were put off by the Alpha Center after their first interaction. They describe the process as beginning with a dimly lit room and an odd feeling. The paperwork prompted patients to disclose religious beliefs and sexual history, including how many people they’d slept with. X also mentioned that the sexual history question was very heteronormative, assuming that the patient was heterosexual, and contained a lot of other questions that seemed irrelevant to the service X was seeking. X also identifies as non-binary, and this experience was before they were even out to themselves, so not only was this experience uncomfortable for the reasons already mentioned, but it also had some undertones of gender dysphoria mixed in, which anyone who has experienced dysphoria knows is not fun!
X also mentioned that after filling out their paperwork, they were sent to a “one-on-one counseling session” with someone who did not seem like a doctor. When reflecting on the conversation, X said that they remember the “doctor” taking a fear-mongering and stigmatizing take on STDs and STIs, rather than a medical lens. X was at the Alpha Center for a routine healthcare procedure but, while at the Alpha Center, they felt as if they just had to “suck it up through the bullshit and get the results.” They also mentioned that they kept reminding themself that this is just a free option and the only resource available to them at that time. X returned a second time with their friend to get their results, they were told to go around the back and into the basement — odd vibes. 😳
I asked X if anything from that experience has stuck with them over the years, and the only thing that has is the fact that the doctor they dealt with was a family friend, which makes the entire experience even more uncomfortable. And also reveals a little bit about that family friend, since they are choosing to work at an AACC. I also asked X how they felt when they left, to which they replied that largely based on their history with the doctor, they felt uncomfortable and a little bit violated, and it is definitely somewhere they will not be going back to. X also mentioned that during the intake they showed signs of not using scientific facts and not approaching it as a medical/scientific thing, but because X was raised in a pretty conservative household, they didn’t find it to be super out of the norm until they were able to reflect on it later.
At the end of the day, X would not recommend going to the Alpha Center for reproductive health care, even for their free services. While free services are inviting and sound promising, they come with the extra weight of deception, religious prejudice, stigma, sex negativity, and heteronormativity. For those who are part of the LGBTQ+ community, this kind of experience can be especially harmful. The Alpha Center is not a safe space to receive reproductive health care, and we need more access to comprehensive, stigma-free health clinics for everybody in Fort Collins.
