Austin Arthur tied to Life’s Choices Women’s Clinic

Austin Arthur, candidate for District 1 Orange County Commissioner, is a board member for Life’s Choices Women’s Clinic, a crisis pregnancy center with offices in Clermont and Eustis. He joined the board in 2023, annual reports filed on Sunbiz show. The most recent filing on July 3, 2024, indicate he is still active. 

Life’s Choices Women’s Clinic was included in VoxPopuli’s May special report on local crisis pregnancy centers, which prevent women and girls from accessing abortions and contraception. It's run by Marcia Marron, the executive director, who had an abortion when she was younger and now wants to prevent other women from doing likewise. But unlike many of the centers in our report, which promote outdated, false and misleading information, Life's Choices Women's Clinic's website links to reputable sources like Mayo Clinic and does not traffic in debunked claims like that abortion causes breast cancer.

Despite the word “clinic” in the business name, however, crisis pregnancy centers, like Life's Choices Women's Clinic, are not real medical clinics. They are exempt from regulatory, credentialing and licensure oversight. They do not accept insurance. Their free services are underwritten by a charity arm, usually religious, that solicits donations. 

Because Life’s Choices Women’s Clinics is not a medical clinic, it can only offer a limited menu of services: pregnancy tests, screening for sexually transmitted infections, counseling, and pregnancy ultrasound. They're able to provide ultrasound by piggybacking on the license of a physician or chiropractor. Marron confirmed they have an off-site ob-gyn who works as the medical director and reviews the images via computer.  She said they also have registered nurses on staff and are HIPAA-compliant.

But Life's Choices Women's Clinic also promotes “abortion pill reversal,” a controversial procedure, advocated by the anti-abortion movement, which claims to sustain pregnancy with progesterone after the first pill (a progesterone blocker) in medication abortion's two-pill process is taken. This procedure has gotten a lot of ink lately because 15 states (but not Florida) have passed laws mandating that information about this process be given during pre-abortion counseling.

Marron said she’s only had occasion to refer two women to the Abortion Rescue Network hotline for abortion pill reversal (perhaps because fewer than .005 percent change their minds) but that she’s comfortable with the research supporting it. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has said abortion pill reversal, which has not undergone rigorous scientific study, is “unproven,” “unethical” and not supported by science.

A small study that attempted to replicate the research supporting abortion pill reversal was stopped early when three women had to be taken to the hospital for severe hemorrhage after taking mifepristone but not the second pill in medication abortion's two-step process.

Experts from the medical and public health communities have lined up against abortion pill reversal . In Colorado, the procedure is banned.

Arthur has tried to stay focused on local issues like infrastructure and affordable housing and has declined to make his views on topics he believes are the purview of Tallahassee and Washington, D.C., fodder for his campaign. 

In June, he told a gathering in Dr. Phillips, “We don’t need to be in this conversation to talk about things like abortion. Those are critical issues that I care about, that I’m passionate about, but I’m private about because I’m running for your Orange County Commissioner and that has nothing to do with the job I’m running for.”

But that was before Arthur’s status as a crisis pregnancy center board member became known. 

Arthur has readily discussed his other board appointments. His campaign site lists more than half a dozen nonprofit boards that he serves on, including: West Orange Habitat for Humanity, Eight Waves Children and Family Services, Challenge 22 to End Veteran Suicide, Lift Disability Network, West Orange Scholarship Foundation, Explore and Soar Children’s Museum, and the Central Florida YMCA. Arthur also serves on the City of Winter Garden's Architectural Review and Historic Preservation Board.

But there's no mention of Life's Choices Women's Clinic.

Voters should know who they are electing, according to his opponent in the Orange County Commission race, incumbent District 1 Commissioner Nicole Wilson.

“I’m concerned about the lack of candor about who he is,” Wilson said in a Sunday phone call when she learned of Arthur’s connection to the crisis pregnancy center.

“He’s been running for two years. He always talks about his involvement with Eight Waves and Habitat for Humanity. This should have been mentioned a long time ago. The bigger picture is, we don’t know this guy.”

“Involvement with an anti-abortion center is in clear conflict with the diverse needs of Orange County's residents,” Cheyenne Drews, an Orange County resident and deputy communications director for Progress Florida, told VoxPopuli via email Saturday. 

“Local elected officials have the opportunity to expose the tactics of these centers and invest in legitimate alternatives, such as free and low-cost health screenings, financial support to diaper banks, and help for abortion funds who are doing everything they can for patients needing to leave the state because of Florida's near-total ban on abortion.”

VoxPopuli asked Arthur why voters should trust him on any issue when he is associated with an organization that undermines women’s healthcare.

Arthur likened the situation to knowing a supermarket bag boy’s views on abortion — not particularly relevant to the job at hand. He pointed out he would not be voting on abortion on the county commission. 

Arthur followed up with a more formal statement by email: 

“On the campaign trail I have stated it many times — the issues that divide residents on moral grounds are dealt with in Tallahassee and Washington D.C. We have dealt with a Commissioner for four years that constantly projects this sort of issue into county governance, (sic) why should we wonder that we have an infrastructure crisis in Orange County? Our roads are failing, over-development is pounding us, the homelessness crisis is growing, and our commissioner uses her public platform to advocate for issues that have no relevance to her position.

“My involvement in these sorts of issues remain private because I will never use them against our residents on the local level. We have so much we all agree on, and I will not engage in using my position as Orange County Commissioner to divide residents. Lets (sic) just fix the roads, push back against over-development, and stop the division.”