At Disney Parks, a Bracelet Meant to Build Loyalty (and Sales)

ORLANDO, Fla. — Imagine Walt Disney World with no entry turnstiles. Cash? Passé: Visitors would wear rubber bracelets encoded with credit card information, snapping up corn dogs and Mickey Mouse ears with a tap of the wrist. Smartphone alerts would signal when it is time to ride Space Mountain without standing in line.

Fantasyland? Hardly. It happens starting this spring.

Disney in the coming months plans to begin introducing a vacation management system called MyMagic+ that will drastically change the way Disney World visitors — some 30 million people a year — do just about everything.

The initiative is part of a broader effort, estimated by analysts to cost between $800 million and $1 billion, to make visiting Disney parks less daunting and more amenable to modern consumer behavior. Disney is betting that happier guests will spend more money.

“If we can enhance the experience, more people will spend more of their leisure time with us,” said Thomas O. Staggs, chairman of Disney Parks and Resorts.

The ambitious plan moves Disney deeper into the hotly debated terrain of personal data collection. Like most major companies, Disney wants to have as much information about its customers’ preferences as it can get, so it can appeal to them more efficiently. The company already collects data to use in future sales campaigns, but parts of MyMagic+ will allow Disney for the first time to track guest behavior in minute detail.

Did you buy a balloon? What attractions did you ride and when? Did you shake Goofy’s hand, but snub Snow White? If you fully use MyMagic+, databases will be watching, allowing Disney to refine its offerings and customize its marketing messages.

Disney is aware of potential privacy concerns, especially regarding children. The plan, which comes as the federal government is trying to strengthen online privacy protections, could be troublesome for a company that some consumers worry is already too controlling.

But Disney has decided that MyMagic+ is essential. The company must aggressively weave new technology into its parks — without damaging the sense of nostalgia on which the experience depends — or risk becoming irrelevant to future generations, Mr. Staggs said. From a business perspective, he added, MyMagic+ could be “transformational.”

Aside from benefiting Disney’s bottom line, the initiative could alter the global theme parks business. Disney is not the first vacation company to use wristbands equipped with radio frequency identification, or RFID, chips. Great Wolf Resorts, an operator of 11 water parks in North America, has been using them since 2006. But Disney’s global parks operation, which has an estimated 121.4 million admissions a year and generates $12.9 billion in revenue, is so huge that it can greatly influence consumer behavior.

“When Disney makes a move, it moves the culture,” said Steve Brown, chief operating officer for Lo-Q, a British company that provides line management and ticketing systems for theme parks and zoos.

Disney World guests currently plod through entrance turnstiles, redeeming paper tickets, and then decide what to ride; food and merchandise are bought with cash or credit cards. (Disney hotel key cards can also be used to charge items.) People race to FastPass kiosks, which dispense a limited number of free line-skipping tickets. But gridlock quickly sets in and most people wait. And wait.

In contrast, MyMagic+ will allow users of a new Web site and app — called My Disney Experience — to preselect three FastPasses before they leave home for rides or V.I.P. seating for parades, fireworks and character meet-and-greets. Orlando-bound guests can also preregister for RFID bracelets. These so-called MagicBands will function as room key, park ticket, FastPass and credit card.

MagicBands can also be encoded with all sorts of personal details, allowing for more personalized interaction with Disney employees. Before, the employee playing Cinderella could say hello only in a general way. Now — if parents opt in — hidden sensors will read MagicBand data, providing information needed for a personalized greeting: “Hi, Angie,” the character might say without prompting. “I understand it’s your birthday.”

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Alleged maternity hotel now appears to be vacant

An alleged maternity hotel operating out of a hilltop mansion in Chino Hills has apparently shut down after city officials obtained a temporary restraining order against its owners.

The mansion allegedly housed women from China who traveled to California to give birth to American citizen babies.

In a Dec. 7 court filing, Chino Hills officials describe a seven-bedroom house divided into 17 bedrooms and 17 bathrooms, with mothers and their babies staying in 10 of the rooms. The owners did not obtain permits to remodel the property, nor were they allowed to operate a business in a residential zone, the complaint stated.

Neighbors on Woodglen Drive complained of cars speeding in and out of the mansion's driveway. In September, about 2,000 gallons of raw sewage spilled down the hill because of an overloaded septic system.

Last month, a group called Not in Chino Hills staged a protest against the facility.

City officials who inspected the alleged hotel said conditions inside were dangerous, with exposed wiring, missing smoke alarms and holes in the bedroom floors. They found brochures titled "USA Los Angeles Hermas International Club Guidance on How to Have an American Baby," according to the Dec. 7 complaint. One woman said she paid $150 a day for her room. A receipt from another guest totaled $27,000 for a stay of several months, the complaint said.

So-called birth tourism is widespread in the San Gabriel Valley, with Chinese-language websites advertising rooms in single-family homes or luxury apartment complexes. The women typically enter the country on tourist visas and stay for about a month after giving birth. The child has the option of returning to the U.S. for schooling, and the parents may petition for a green card when the child turns 21.

The practice does not violate federal immigration laws, but some maternity hotels have run afoul of local ordinances.

On Dec. 27, San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Ben Kayashima granted Chino Hills' request for a temporary restraining order. A hearing is scheduled for Jan. 17 to determine whether the order should be extended.

The Woodglen Drive house now appears to be unoccupied, city spokeswoman Denise Cattern said Thursday.

Hai Yong Wu, one of the owners, could not be reached for comment.

"It's about time. This thing should have shut down a long time ago," said Rossana Mitchell, a founder of Not in Chino Hills. "I'm glad to hear it."

cindy.chang@latimes.com

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Leader of Online Movie Group IMAGiNE Gets five Years for Piracy

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Jeremiah B. Perkins, the former leader of internet movie group IMAGiNE, was sentenced to five years in prison on a piracy charge, the U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday.

Perkins, 40, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement in August.

In addition to the prison sentence, Perkins was sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $ 15,000 in restitution.

The five-year prison sentence and three years supervised release represent the maximum sentence that Perkins faced, but he could have received a maximum fine of $ 250,000.

According to the Justice Department, IMAGiNE specialized in pirating movies playing in theaters. Court documents indicated that Perkins, of Portsmouth, Va., and his cohorts used receivers and recording devices to capture the audio tracks for movies in theaters, then sync the audio tracks to illegally recorded video files. The group would then share the completed files with members of the IMAGiNE Group and others.

ExtraTorrent reports that the recipients of IMAGiNE’s pirated movies included buyers in Asia, who would then make copies and distribute the pirated films in the Asian underground market.

During Perkins’ trial, an MPAA representative testified that IMAGiNE was “the most prolific motion picture piracy release group operating on the Internet from September 2009 through September 2011,” the Justice Department said.

The Justice Department said that Perkins admitted to renting computer servers in France and other locations for IMAGiNE’s use, and also to registering internet domains for IMAGiNE and setting up PayPal and email accounts to facilitate the group’s transactions.

Three of Perkins’ co-defendants – Sean M. Lovelady, Willie O. Lambert and Gregory A. Cherwonik – also pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and received sentences ranging from 23 to 40 months.

A fifth co-defendant, Javier E. Ferrer, was charged in September and also pleaded guilty to the charge. His sentencing is scheduled for March.

Perkins and his co-defendants were arrested by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations division, which also conducted the investigation.

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French actor Depardieu in Russia to meet Putin

MOSCOW (Reuters) – French film star Gerard Depardieu arrived in Russia on Saturday to meet President Vladimir Putin, who granted him citizenship after a public spat in France over his efforts to avoid a potential 75 percent income tax.

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the two would meet in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, where Putin was spending part of the 10-day New Year and Russian Orthodox Christmas holiday.

He said it was possible Putin would hand Depardieu his Russian passport during the meeting.

“It is a private meeting, we will not be releasing any other details,” Peskov said by phone.

Russian media quoted him as saying the meeting would take place on Saturday. Depardieu’s spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.

On Thursday, the Kremlin announced that Putin had signed a decree granting Russian citizenship to Depardieu, who objected to Socialist president Francois Hollande’s plan to impose a 75 percent tax rate on millionaires.

Depardieu is a popular figure in Russia, where he has appeared in many advertising campaigns, including for ketchup. He also worked there in 2011 on a film about the eccentric Russian monk Grigory Rasputin.

The star of the movies “Cyrano de Bergerac” and “Green Card” was also among the Western celebrities invited in 2012 to celebrate the birthday of Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed strongman leader of Russia’s Chechnya province who is accused by rights groups of crushing dissent.

Some of Putin’s critics called the passport move a stunt and pointed out that Putin last month announced a campaign to prevent rich Russians keeping their money offshore.

At a press conference on December 20 during which he offered Depardieu a passport, Putin said Russia had a close, special relationship with France and that he had developed warm ties with the actor, even though they had rarely met.

But Moscow suffered a blow in November when it was forced to suspend its bid to build an Orthodox church with five domes in the heart of Paris, whose mayor called the plan “ostentatious”.

Russia has a flat-rate income tax of 13 percent compared to the 75 percent rate that French President Francois Hollande wants to introduce on income over 1 million euros ($ 1.32 million).

Depardieu has already bought a house in Belgium to establish Belgian residency in protest at Hollande’s tax plans.

Hollande’s original proposal was struck down by France’s Constitutional Court in December, but he has pledged to press ahead with a redrafted tax on the wealthy.

French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called Depardieu’s decision to seek Belgian residency “pathetic” and unpatriotic, prompting an angry reply from the actor.

Russia does not require people to hand in their foreign passports once they acquire a Russian one. But it is rare for people from the European Union or the United States to seek Russian citizenship unless they have recent Russian roots.

(Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris; Writing by Gabriela Baczynska and Steve Gutterman; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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Despite New Health Law, Some See Sharp Rise in Premiums

Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers.

Bob Chamberlin/Los Angeles Times

Dave Jones, the California insurance commissioner, said some insurance companies could raise rates as much as they did before the law was enacted.

Particularly vulnerable to the high rates are small businesses and people who do not have employer-provided insurance and must buy it on their own.

In California, Aetna is proposing rate increases of as much as 22 percent, Anthem Blue Cross 26 percent and Blue Shield of California 20 percent for some of those policy holders, according to the insurers’ filings with the state for 2013. These rate requests are all the more striking after a 39 percent rise sought by Anthem Blue Cross in 2010 helped give impetus to the law, known as the Affordable Care Act, which was passed the same year and will not be fully in effect until 2014.

 In other states, like Florida and Ohio, insurers have been able to raise rates by at least 20 percent for some policy holders. The rate increases can amount to several hundred dollars a month.

The proposed increases compare with about 4 percent for families with employer-based policies.

Under the health care law, regulators are now required to review any request for a rate increase of 10 percent or more; the requests are posted on a federal Web site, healthcare.gov, along with regulators’ evaluations.

The review process not only reveals the sharp disparity in the rates themselves, it also demonstrates the striking difference between places like New York, one of the 37 states where legislatures have given regulators some authority to deny or roll back rates deemed excessive, and California, which is among the states that do not have that ability.

New York, for example, recently used its sweeping powers to hold rate increases for 2013 in the individual and small group markets to under 10 percent. California can review rate requests for technical errors but cannot deny rate increases.

The double-digit requests in some states are being made despite evidence that overall health care costs appear to have slowed in recent years, increasing in the single digits annually as many people put off treatment because of the weak economy. PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that costs may increase just 7.5 percent next year, well below the rate increases being sought by some insurers. But the companies counter that medical costs for some policy holders are rising much faster than the average, suggesting they are in a sicker population. Federal regulators contend that premiums would be higher still without the law, which also sets limits on profits and administrative costs and provides for rebates if insurers exceed those limits.

Critics, like Dave Jones, the California insurance commissioner and one of two health plan regulators in that state, said that without a federal provision giving all regulators the ability to deny excessive rate increases, some insurance companies can raise rates as much as they did before the law was enacted.

“This is business as usual,” Mr. Jones said. “It’s a huge loophole in the Affordable Care Act,” he said.

While Mr. Jones has not yet weighed in on the insurers’ most recent requests, he is pushing for a state law that will give him that authority. Without legislative action, the state can only question the basis for the high rates, sometimes resulting in the insurer withdrawing or modifying the proposed rate increase.

The California insurers say they have no choice but to raise premiums if their underlying medical costs have increased. “We need these rates to even come reasonably close to covering the expenses of this population,” said Tom Epstein, a spokesman for Blue Shield of California. The insurer is requesting a range of increases, which average about 12 percent for 2013.

Although rates paid by employers are more closely tracked than rates for individuals and small businesses, policy experts say the law has probably kept at least some rates lower than they otherwise would have been.

“There’s no question that review of rates makes a difference, that it results in lower rates paid by consumers and small businesses,” said Larry Levitt, an executive at the Kaiser Family Foundation, which estimated in an October report that rate review was responsible for lowering premiums for one out of every five filings.

Federal officials say the law has resulted in significant savings. “The health care law includes new tools to hold insurers accountable for premium hikes and give rebates to consumers,” said Brian Cook, a spokesman for Medicare, which is helping to oversee the insurance reforms.

“Insurers have already paid $1.1 billion in rebates, and rate review programs have helped save consumers an additional $1 billion in lower premiums,” he said. If insurers collect premiums and do not spend at least 80 cents out of every dollar on care for their customers, the law requires them to refund the excess.

As a result of the review process, federal officials say, rates were reduced, on average, by nearly three percentage points, according to a report issued last September.

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Despite New Health Law, Some See Sharp Rise in Premiums

Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers.

Bob Chamberlin/Los Angeles Times

Dave Jones, the California insurance commissioner, said some insurance companies could raise rates as much as they did before the law was enacted.

Particularly vulnerable to the high rates are small businesses and people who do not have employer-provided insurance and must buy it on their own.

In California, Aetna is proposing rate increases of as much as 22 percent, Anthem Blue Cross 26 percent and Blue Shield of California 20 percent for some of those policy holders, according to the insurers’ filings with the state for 2013. These rate requests are all the more striking after a 39 percent rise sought by Anthem Blue Cross in 2010 helped give impetus to the law, known as the Affordable Care Act, which was passed the same year and will not be fully in effect until 2014.

 In other states, like Florida and Ohio, insurers have been able to raise rates by at least 20 percent for some policy holders. The rate increases can amount to several hundred dollars a month.

The proposed increases compare with about 4 percent for families with employer-based policies.

Under the health care law, regulators are now required to review any request for a rate increase of 10 percent or more; the requests are posted on a federal Web site, healthcare.gov, along with regulators’ evaluations.

The review process not only reveals the sharp disparity in the rates themselves, it also demonstrates the striking difference between places like New York, one of the 37 states where legislatures have given regulators some authority to deny or roll back rates deemed excessive, and California, which is among the states that do not have that ability.

New York, for example, recently used its sweeping powers to hold rate increases for 2013 in the individual and small group markets to under 10 percent. California can review rate requests for technical errors but cannot deny rate increases.

The double-digit requests in some states are being made despite evidence that overall health care costs appear to have slowed in recent years, increasing in the single digits annually as many people put off treatment because of the weak economy. PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that costs may increase just 7.5 percent next year, well below the rate increases being sought by some insurers. But the companies counter that medical costs for some policy holders are rising much faster than the average, suggesting they are in a sicker population. Federal regulators contend that premiums would be higher still without the law, which also sets limits on profits and administrative costs and provides for rebates if insurers exceed those limits.

Critics, like Dave Jones, the California insurance commissioner and one of two health plan regulators in that state, said that without a federal provision giving all regulators the ability to deny excessive rate increases, some insurance companies can raise rates as much as they did before the law was enacted.

“This is business as usual,” Mr. Jones said. “It’s a huge loophole in the Affordable Care Act,” he said.

While Mr. Jones has not yet weighed in on the insurers’ most recent requests, he is pushing for a state law that will give him that authority. Without legislative action, the state can only question the basis for the high rates, sometimes resulting in the insurer withdrawing or modifying the proposed rate increase.

The California insurers say they have no choice but to raise premiums if their underlying medical costs have increased. “We need these rates to even come reasonably close to covering the expenses of this population,” said Tom Epstein, a spokesman for Blue Shield of California. The insurer is requesting a range of increases, which average about 12 percent for 2013.

Although rates paid by employers are more closely tracked than rates for individuals and small businesses, policy experts say the law has probably kept at least some rates lower than they otherwise would have been.

“There’s no question that review of rates makes a difference, that it results in lower rates paid by consumers and small businesses,” said Larry Levitt, an executive at the Kaiser Family Foundation, which estimated in an October report that rate review was responsible for lowering premiums for one out of every five filings.

Federal officials say the law has resulted in significant savings. “The health care law includes new tools to hold insurers accountable for premium hikes and give rebates to consumers,” said Brian Cook, a spokesman for Medicare, which is helping to oversee the insurance reforms.

“Insurers have already paid $1.1 billion in rebates, and rate review programs have helped save consumers an additional $1 billion in lower premiums,” he said. If insurers collect premiums and do not spend at least 80 cents out of every dollar on care for their customers, the law requires them to refund the excess.

As a result of the review process, federal officials say, rates were reduced, on average, by nearly three percentage points, according to a report issued last September.

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7.6 quake jolts Alaska, triggers tsunami warning

Low clouds blanket Anchorage, Alaska. The tsunami waves are expected to hit Cordova and Craig, which are southeast of Anchorage. (Marc Lester / AP Photo/The Anchorage Daily News / January 5, 2013)

From the Associated Press

January 5, 2013, 2:40 a.m.

JUNEAU, Alaska—

A tsunami warning is in effect for parts of southern Alaska and coastal Canada after a strong earthquake shook the region at midnight Friday.

The warning area includes coastal areas from about 75 miles southeast of Cordova, Alaska, to the north tip of Vancouver Island, Canada, the Alaska Tsunami Warning Center said. The warning area extends for about 475 miles.

The magnitude 7.5 quake struck at midnight Friday (1 a.m. PST Saturday) and was centered about 60 miles west of Craig, Alaska, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

A tsunami with a “significant widespread inundation of land is expected,” the center said in a statement.

The first wave was expected around 1:15 a.m. (2:15 a.m. PST) in Craig, and 2:50 a.m. in Cordova, further to the north.

The center said widespread dangerous coastal flooding is possible.

In addition to the warning, a tsunami advisory is in effect for coastal Alaska from Cape Suckling to 75 miles southeast of Cordova and from the Washington state border to the tip of Vancouver Island.

A tsunami warning means an area is likely to be hit by a wave, while an advisory means there may be strong currents, but that widespread inundation is not expected to occur.

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After much speculation, CEO Kilar to leave Hulu

(Reuters) – Hulu Chief Executive Jason Kilar will leave the streaming TV company this quarter, he wrote in a blog post on the company’s website on Friday, raising more questions about its future path under multiple owners.

Kilar has long been rumored to be exiting the company as it faces stiff competition from Netflix Inc, Amazon.com Inc as well as Google Inc and Apple Inc.

Hulu chief technology officer Rich Tom is also leaving, according to the post.

Kilar gave no reason for his departure or indicate his future plans. Hulu did not name a replacement for the executives.

Kilar, Hulu CEO since July 2007, last year steered the company to $ 700 million in revenue and grew subscribers to 3 million. More than 200,000 new subscribers have signed up with the service in the last seven days, he noted.

“My decision to depart has been one of the toughest I’ve ever made,” Kilar wrote. “The things that have clearly brought the most joy to my heart (and what I believe to be the most important inputs in our business) have been this team and the values and principles we hold dear.”

Still, the popular service, which started primarily as a free site for people to catch up on television shows they might have missed, has had a rocky path over the last five years.

Part of the problem stems from its complicated ownership structure involving media conglomerates Walt Disney Co, News Corp and Comcast NBC Universal, and how much content each should make available to Hulu.

The owners face a dilemma: The success of Hulu could potentially eat away at the lucrative business of getting cable companies to pay for programming. Furthermore, it is now building out its own stable of original content exclusive to Hulu.

Disney CEO Bob Iger said in a statement that Kilar had been “an integral part of the Hulu story, transforming it from an interesting idea into an innovative business model that continues to evolve… We appreciate what he’s built, and we share his confidence in his team’s ability to drive Hulu forward from here.”

A statement from News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch said Kilar had helped build Hulu into one of the leading online video services and called the company “incredibly well positioned for the road ahead.”

BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield expects News Corp’s Fox to buy out its partners in the venture this year.

“With full ownership of Hulu, FOX accelerates Hulu‘s push into original programming and explores adding cable network content to create a virtual MVPD (multichannel video programmer distributor) service,” Greenfield said in a January 3 research note.

Comcast, the third partner in the venture declined to comment on Kilar’s departure. Unlike Disney and News Corp, Comcast does not have any management control of Hulu, which was a regulatory condition related to its acquisition of NBC Universal in 2011.

Hulu put itself on the block in 2011 with suitors including Google, Amazon, DirecTV Group and Dish Network Corp, Reuters reported at the time. Talks collapsed over the price of the deal.

Private equity firm Providence Equity Partners said in October last year that it had sold its 10 percent stake in Hulu to the remaining owners.

Kilar’s name surfaced as a potential candidate for the top job at Yahoo Inc after Scott Thompson resigned last year but Kilar removed himself from consideration.

(Reporting By Jennifer Saba and Liana Baker in New York; Editing by Gunna Dickson and Tim Dobbyn)

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Anna Faris Joins Chuck Lorre’s CBS Pilot ‘Mom’

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Anna Faris has joined the ranks of big-screen talent taking on small-screen projects.

“The House Bunny” and “Scary Movie 4” star Faris has been cast to star in “Mom,” the CBS pilot from “Two and a Half Men” and “The Big Bang Theory” executive producer Chuck Lorre, individuals familiar with the situation told TheWrap on Friday.

Faris will play a newly sober single mom who attempts to pull her life together in California’s Napa Valley. (Which could pose a problem, given the region’s prodigious wine output.)

The half-hour, multi-camera comedy, which has received a pilot production order from a spec script, is executive-produced by Lorre and Eddie Gorodetsky (who’s served as a producer on “The Big Bang Theory” and “Two and a Half Men“). The pair are also writing, along with Gemma Baker (“Two and a Half Men“). Baker is also a producer on the project.

Chuck Lorre Productions is producing in association with Warner Bros. Television.

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Pregnancy Centers Gain Influence in Anti-Abortion Fight

Brandon Thibodeaux for The New York Times

Amber Jupe, right, attended a session conducted by Margo Shanks at a Care Net facility; the program addressed signs of fetal alcohol syndrome.

WACO, Tex. — With free pregnancy tests and ultrasounds, along with diapers, parenting classes and even temporary housing, pregnancy centers are playing an increasingly influential role in the anti-abortion movement. While most attention has focused on scores of new state laws restricting abortion, the centers have been growing in numbers and gaining state financing and support.

Largely run by conservative Christians, the centers say they offer what Roland Warren, head of Care Net, one of the largest pregnancy center organizations, described as “a compassionate approach to this issue.”

As they expand, they are adding on-call or on-site medical personnel and employing sophisticated strategies to attract women, including Internet search optimization and mobile units near Planned Parenthood clinics.

“They’re really the darlings of the pro-life movement,” said Jeanneane Maxon, vice president for external affairs at Americans United for Life, an anti-abortion group. “That ground level, one-on-one, reaching-the-woman-where-she’s-at approach.”

Pregnancy centers, while not new, now number about 2,500, compared with about 1,800 abortion providers. Ms. Maxon estimated that the centers see about a million clients annually, with another million attending abstinence and other programs. Abortion rights advocates have long called some of their approaches deceptive or manipulative. Medical and other experts say some dispense scientifically flawed information, exaggerating abortion’s risks.

Jean Schroedel, a Claremont Graduate University politics professor, said that “there are some positive aspects” to centers, but that “things pregnant women are told at many of these centers, some of it is really factually suspect.”

The centers defend their practices and information. “Women who come in are constantly telling us, ‘Abortion seems to be my only alternative and I think that’s the best thing to do,’ ” said Peggy Hartshorn, president of Heartbeat International, which she described as a “Christ-centered” organization with 1,100 affiliates. “Centers provide women with the whole choice.”

One pregnant woman, Nasya Dotie, 21, single, worried about finishing college and disappointing her parents, said she was “almost positive I was going to have an abortion.”

A friend at her Christian university suggested visiting Care Net of Central Texas. She met with a counselor, went home and considered her options. She returned for an ultrasound, and though planning not to look at the screen, when a clinician offered, she agreed. Then, “I was like, ‘That’s my baby. I can’t not have him.’ ”

Thirteen states now provide some direct financing; 27 offer “Choose Life” license plates, the proceeds from which aid centers. In 2011, Texas increased financing for the centers while cutting family planning money by two-thirds, and required abortion clinics to provide names of centers at least 24 hours before performing abortions. In South Dakota, a 2011 law being challenged by Planned Parenthood requires pregnancy center visits before abortions.

Cities like Austin, Baltimore and New York have tried regulating centers with ordinances requiring them to post signs stating that they do not provide abortions or contraceptives, and disclosing whether medical professionals are on-site. Except for San Francisco’s, the laws were blocked by courts or softened after centers sued claiming free speech violations. Similar bills in five states floundered. Most legal challenges to “Choose Life” license plates failed, although a North Carolina court said alternate views must be offered.

Some observers say harsh anti-abortion statements from the 2012 elections may also benefit pregnancy centers.

“Do you want some individual politician talking about rape, or some woman who says, ‘I care about you’?” Dr. Schroedel said.

Conservatives like Rick Santorum, during his presidential campaign, and the Texas governor, Rick Perry, have praised pregnancy centers.

Some centers use controversial materials stating that abortion may increase the risk of breast cancer. A brochure issued by Care Net’s national organization, for example, says, “A number of reliable studies have concluded that there is an association between abortion and later development of breast cancer.”

Dr. Otis Brawley, the American Cancer Society’s chief medical officer, who calls himself a “pro-life Catholic,” said studies showing abortion-breast cancer links are “very weak,” while strong studies find no correlation.

Other claims include long-term psychological effects. The Care Net brochure says that “many women experience initial relief,” but that “women should be informed that abortion significantly increases risk for” clinical depression, suicidal thoughts and behavior, post-traumatic stress disorder and other problems. An American Psychological Association report found no increased risk from one abortion.

With largely volunteer staffs and donations from mostly Christian sources, centers usually offer free tests and ultrasounds, services that clinics like Planned Parenthood charge for. They offer advice about baby-rearing or adoption, ask if women are being pressured to abort, and give technical descriptions of abortion and fetal development. Many offer prayer and Bible study.

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