In a bedroom in the upstairs of a home on Haskell Street, at the Real Choices Women’s Center, which advertises itself as an “abortion clinic alternative,” visitors come to consult with staff members about their pregnancy.
The room contains three chairs and a coffee table. No medical equipment or examination tables are present. A white noise machine hangs from the door knob of the consultation room.
The aim here is to discourage pregnant women from seeking abortions.
A crisis pregnancy center is defined as a non-profit organization established by anti-abortion and often religious groups with the goal of dissuading pregnant people from getting abortions. In the United States, crisis pregnancy centers now outnumber abortion clinics roughly four to one. There are an estimated 2500-4000 crisis pregnancy centers in the U.S., and only 807 abortion clinics.
Maureen Scott, co-founder of Wild West Access Fund of Nevada, an abortion fund based in Nevada, describes crisis pregnancy centers as a serious problem in Northern Nevada that needs to be dealt with.
“Crisis Pregnancy Centers, AKA fake clinics, aim to misinform patients about abortion care in an effort to propagate their anti-choice agenda, disrespecting patient bodily autonomy in the process,” Scott said. “These fake clinics do not have medical staff, and often classify themselves as religious or non-profit organizations to skirt regulations placed on healthcare facilities.”
According to non-profit tax forms, Real Choices Women's Center is owned and operated by the husband and wife team of Corey and Nicku Bruce, with two locations: the one pictured in Midtown and one in Fernley. The center offers a variety of different services including pregnancy testing, “options” consultations, and abortion recovery. The majority of the staff working inside these centers providing consultations are not medical professionals or professionally trained in any women’s health fields. In a response to a google review, the center stated their staff were “certified crisis coaches.”
Google Reviews concerning Real Choices Women’s Center with the executive director of Real Choices Women’s Center, Nicku Bruce, in center.
In google reviews dating back seven years, former visitors to the center describe the uncomfortable pressure they faced from Real Choices Women's Center staff members during consultations.
Google Reviewer Monique Ida wrote, “If you feel like being trapped in a room & bombarded with weird propaganda by a pack of rabid evangelicals cosplaying as nurses, this is the place for you.”
The center responded to this review, claiming to have never seen Ida as a patient.
Above some of the materials handed out at Real Choices Women’s Center.
Real Choices Women’s Center operates out of a typical Reno home. Visitors are brought to the upstairs of the home before sitting down with a consultant to engage in an intake process involving two forms and a 40 minute discussion prior to their pregnancy test.
Required forms for an appointment with Real Choices Women’s Center include a demographics portion before a medical history portion. Demographics questions ask patients about their marital status and their yearly income. There are also questions asking about their relationship with God, if they are a Christian, and what their religion is. After the completion of the forms, visitors will make a urine sample that they will keep with them throughout the entirety of their consultation.
Before the consultation can begin, staff members reiterate that they do not perform abortions at Real Choices Women’s Center and will not refer visitors to get an abortion. Despite this, their website says it offers information on abortion pills, procedures and abortions as an option.
During the consultation, visitors are given a paper and pamphlets detailing their options: Adoption, Parenting, and Abortion with pros and cons for each. They are asked to share with their consultant what stands out to them for each. Then, they are asked to engage in a spiritual discussion with their consultant, in which they are asked again what their relationship to God is, their history with religion, how they believe babies come to Earth, and if this impacts their decision on how to proceed with the pregnancy.
Following the consultation, patients are instructed to perform their pregnancy test with their urine sample in front of the consultant and then read their own results.
On a cold day, one of our reporters visited the center to experience what other visitors described in their reviews.
Following our reporter’s negative pregnancy test result, a nurse talked with her about the possibility of a miscarriage.
Then a consultant, Sarah Beth, returned to the room to encourage her to pursue a relationship with God and assured her she was loved by her creator. Before leaving, our reporter was given a brochure to help her process her negative pregnancy test with portions encouraging abstinence before marriage.
Anti-abortion rhetoric provided at the center in the form of consultations, pamphlets, and flyers included claims that an abortion will impact the ability to have a healthy baby in the future, while portraying an abortion as a “secret” the patient must keep.
The center has recently changed names and goes by many alternative titles online, including: Pregnancy Counseling Center INC., Crisis Pregnancy Centers Midtown and Fernley, and Real Choices Pregnancy Center as evidenced by their flyers and tax forms associated with their organization.
The executive director Nicku Bruce, did not respond to requests for an interview.
On her now inactive X account, Bruce reposted a tweet from Lifeway Women, a Christian blog aimed towards women, saying “Expectancy is the perfect swap for anxiety. We are here expecting Jesus.”
Although Nevada’s Question 6 may have passed to protect abortion rights in the state constitution this November, pro-choice Assemblywoman Erica Roth, who won a District 24 state assembly seat, explained to one of our reporters that legal grey areas still allow crisis pregnancy centers to mislead vulnerable patients under the guise of providing reproductive healthcare.
“These centers shouldn’t be able to put themselves out as healthcare providers,” Roth explained. “They don’t have doctors on staff, and yet they provide what essentially amounts to legalized misinformation to people who are scared and unsure about their options.”
Real Choices Women’s Center refers to themselves as a women’s healthcare clinic. Crisis pregnancy centers are not required to have actual doctors or nurse practitioners on staff, and are mainly composed of medical assistants who only need to know how to provide ultrasounds to be employed.
“These centers target people who are vulnerable—those without a regular OB-GYN or primary care provider who are simply Googling for help,” Roth said.
To combat misinformation, Nevada residents can report crisis pregnancy centers for deceptive practices through the Bureau of Health Care Quality and Compliance. Reports can be filed as consumer protection complaints, triggering an investigation that could result in fines, requiring a plan of correction, or other penalties.
Stressing the importance of educating the public about crisis pregnancy centers, Roth highlights the red flags for patients to watch out for including: a lack of qualified medical professionals, such as doctors or nurse practitioners, strong religious undertones in counseling or materials, and advertisements implying abortion services, which are not actually offered.
In Reno, there is only one abortion clinic currently operating: Planned Parenthood located on South Virginia Street, although many OB-GYNs also perform abortions in their own practices.
In terms of abortion rights and access here in Nevada, following the election of Republican Donald Trump to the presidency, Roth noted concerns about possible looming federal actions, such as using the Comstock Act—a law passed in 1873 banning the mailing of "obscene" materials, including information about contraception and abortion—to restrict abortion medications sent by mail.
“I think the most likely attack that we will see in the beginning of Trump's term is attacks on the ability to access abortion medication through the mail. There's definitely going to be attacks from the federal level that we need to be prepared to address at the state level,” Roth said. “That includes protecting access, because the right by law to access an abortion is rendered obsolete if we don't have access to that life saving care.”
However, Roth pointed out that Nevada’s Republican Governor Joe Lombardo removed mentions of crisis pregnancy centers from the Department of Health and Human Services website after taking office, making it harder for the public to find information on how to report these centers. The four-paragraph section had been part of an “Abortion Information for Nevadans” page launched in 2022 under then-Governor Steve Sisolak.
According to reporting by the Nevada Current, the section remained online until May 2023, as confirmed by the Wayback Machine, but was removed by early June. Lombardo, who is publicly “pro-life,” justified the decision by calling the section’s characterization of CPCs a “mischaracterization and politicization.”
“Governor Lombardo believes that crisis pregnancy centers offer critical resources, support, and care for pregnant women in Nevada,” his spokesperson Elizabeth Ray was quoted as saying.
On the other side of the political aisle, Democratic Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto has been outspoken on her condemnation of crisis pregnancy centers. In 2022, Senator Cortez Masto cosigned legislation to combat misinformation spread by crisis pregnancy centers called the Stop Anti-Abortion Disinformation Act.
“When women need critical care, it's vital that they know all the options available to them so they can make informed decisions. Too often, women visit crisis pregnancy centers expecting comprehensive reproductive healthcare, only to encounter a different experience. This legislation aims to address misleading advertisements by these crisis pregnancy centers,” a representative for Senator Cortez Masto wrote in a statement to our reporting team.
Other crisis pregnancy centers operating in Northern Nevada are Care Net Pregnancy Center in Fallon, and Life Choices Community Pregnancy Clinic in Carson City.
At Real Choices Women’s Center, visitors are welcomed to the center with candy bowls, cookies, and promises of compassionate care. Inside its consultation rooms, non-medically trained personnel utilize religious rhetoric and shame surrounding premarital sex as tactics to persuade young women to pursue abstinence and dissuade pregnant women from receiving abortions.
Reporting by Lily Wright, Juliet Ojeda and Grace Kaplan shared with Our Town Reno