A multi-billion-dollar all-male Catholic order in the US has handed at least $10.8m to hundreds of anti-abortion centres in six years, openDemocracy can reveal – several times what was previously known.
Founded in the 19th century to assist Irish widows and orphans in the US, the Knights of Columbus – named after Christopher Columbus – funded at least 485 of the 2,500 so-called ‘crisis pregnancy centres’ in America between 2017 and 2022, our analysis of hundreds of documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) found. The order claims to have two million members.
A 2006 US congressional report implicated crisis pregnancy centres in the spreading of health misinformation, saying they provided “false or misleading information about a link between abortion and breast cancer, future fertility and mental health issues”. A 2020 investigation by openDemocracy also found such centres, supported by US networks, spreading similar misinformation around the world.
