USA – Millions In Tax Dollars Are Flowing To Anti-Abortion ‘Crisis Pregnancy Centers’

The typically religious centers aim to convince women not to get abortions.

Kimberlee Kruesi
02/05/2022

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Anti-abortion centers across the country are receiving tens of millions of tax dollars to talk women out of ending their pregnancies, a nearly fivefold increase from a decade ago that resulted from an often-overlooked effort by mostly Republican-led states.

The nonprofits known as crisis pregnancy centers are typically religiously affiliated and counsel clients against having an abortion as part of their free but limited services. That practice and the fact that they generally are not licensed as medical facilities have raised questions about whether it’s appropriate to funnel so much tax money their way.

Continued: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/millions-in-tax-dollars-are-flowing-to-anti-abortion-crisis-pregnancy-centers_n_61febaa5e4b05004242e0178

Texas wants to cut women’s health services while preserving an anti-abortion program

by Shannon Najmabadi and Edgar Walters, The Texas Tribune
Monday, August 31st 2020

Texas is proposing to cut nearly $3.8 million in funding from programs that offer low-income residents access to contraceptives and breast and cervical cancer screenings, while leaving intact a robustly funded program that discourages women from having abortions.

Texas health officials proposed the cuts while taking great pains to avoid belt-tightening in most other programs that offer direct services in health care. As the coronavirus pandemic ravages parts of the economy, leaving the state with a projected $4.6 billion deficit, Gov. Greg Abbott asked state agencies to cut their spending by 5% — but largely exempted programs deemed crucial to public health.

Continued: https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/texas-wants-to-cut-womens-health-services-while-preserving-an-anti-abortion-program

USA – Can Anti-Abortion ‘Crisis Pregnancy Centers’ Snag Federal Family-Planning Funds?

Can Anti-Abortion ‘Crisis Pregnancy Centers’ Snag Federal Family-Planning Funds?

By Ed Kilgore
Nov 8, 2019

Like nature, federal funding streams abhor a vacuum. So when the Trump administration pushed Planned Parenthood out of women’s family-planning programs by stipulating that recipients could not refer patients to (or have an organization connection with) abortion providers, a pot of about $60 million a year suddenly became available to anyone who could supply the stipulated services without running afoul of the new regs.

For the most part, the anti-abortion movement’s favorite alternative to Planned Parenthood clinics, its huge (an estimated 2,750 of them) network of so-called “crisis pregnancy centers” don’t really pretend to offer “family planning” or women’s health services. They mostly exist to talk or coerce pregnant women into carrying pregnancies to term, providing (at most) limited services (ultrasounds, of course, and perhaps neonatal health advice and adoption referrals) to make that choice seem morally or religiously obligatory.

Continued: http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/11/can-crisis-pregnancy-centers-snag-federal-funds.html