Anti-abortion centers raked in $1.4bn in year Roe fell, including federal money

Exclusive: memo shows anti-abortion pregnancy centers received at least $344m in government money in 2022

Carter Sherman
Wed 14 Feb 2024

Anti-abortion facilities raked in at least $1.4bn in revenue in the 2022 fiscal year, the year Roe v Wade fell – a staggering haul that includes at least $344m in government money, according to a memo analyzing the centers’ tax documents that was compiled by a pro-abortion rights group and shared exclusively with the Guardian.

These facilities, frequently known as anti-abortion pregnancy centers or crisis pregnancy centers, aim to convince people to keep their pregnancies. But in the aftermath of Roe’s demise, the anti-abortion movement has framed anti-abortion pregnancy centers as a key source of aid for desperate women who have lost the legal right to end their pregnancies and been left with little choice but to give birth.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/14/anti-abortion-centers-funding

Republicans try to block Biden administration plan to cut money for anti-abortion counseling centers

In a new twist in the abortion access fight, congressional Republicans are trying to block a Biden administration spending rule that they say will cut off millions of dollars to anti-abortion counseling centers

By AMANDA SEITZ, Associated Press
January 12, 2024

WASHINGTON -- In a new twist to the fight over abortion access, congressional Republicans are trying to block a Biden administration spending rule that they say will cut off millions of dollars to anti-abortion counseling centers.

The rule would prohibit states from sending federal funds earmarked for needy Americans to so-called “crisis pregnancy centers,” which counsel against abortions. At stake are millions of dollars in federal funds that currently flow to the organizations through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, a block grant program created in 1996 to give cash assistance to poor children and prevent out-of-wedlock pregnancies.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/republicans-push-back-biden-plan-axe-federal-funds-106346479

12.01.2024

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USA – How abortion bans will strain an already failing foster system

Poor families are more likely to be separated by the government. The Dobbs decision will make it worse.

By Miranda Dixon-Luinenburg
Jul 9, 2023

When Michael’s mother called Maine’s primary welfare assistance hotline asking for help, she was a depressed and homeless 18-year-old single mother of three. It was the winter of 1996, and her boyfriend — her last source of additional support — had left her.

A social worker with Maine’s Child Protective Services offered assistance with finding an apartment, but there was a catch — Michael’s mother had to agree that her young children would be taken into foster care. In the state’s eyes, her poverty meant she didn’t have the resources to take care of her kids. But perhaps they could be reunited once she became more stable. This never happened.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/7/9/23786276/foster-care-adoption-system-poverty-neglect-dobbs-abortion

USA – We Are Not Prepared for the Coming Surge of Babies

The post-Roe rise in births in the U.S. will be concentrated in some of the worst states for infant and maternal health. Plans to improve these outcomes are staggeringly thin.

By Melissa Jeltsen
DECEMBER 16, 2022

A typical pregnancy lasts about 40 weeks. Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that created a constitutional right to abortion, was reversed less than six months ago. This means the U.S. is currently at a unique inflection point in the history of reproductive rights: early enough to see the immediate effects of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization—closed clinics, a rapidly shifting map of abortion access—but too soon to measure the rise in babies born to mothers who did not wish to have them. Many of these babies will be born in states that already have the worst maternal- and child-health outcomes in the nation. Although the existence of these children is the goal of the anti-abortion movement, America is unprepared to adequately care for them and the people who give birth to them.

Continued: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2022/12/abortion-post-roe-rise-in-births-baby-care/672479/

States with the toughest abortion laws have the weakest maternal supports, data shows

August 18, 2022
RACHEL TREISMAN

Nearly two dozen states have moved to restrict abortion or ban it altogether since the reversal of Roe v. Wade — meaning more people, especially those with low incomes and from marginalized communities, will be forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term.

So are states prepared to pay for the infrastructure needed to support these parents and children? The data paints a grim picture for many families: Mothers and children in states with the toughest abortion restrictions tend to have less access to health care and financial assistance, as well as worse health outcomes.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2022/08/18/1111344810/abortion-ban-states-social-safety-net-health-outcomes

The end of Roe will mean more children living in poverty

How “pro-life” states are failing new parents and babies.

By Dylan Scott
May 12, 2022

Almost half the United States is ready to outlaw abortion, if given a green light by the Supreme Court, something it’s expected to do in the next few months. But many of those states are not willing to give new babies and their families the educational, medical, or financial support they need to lead a healthy life. That could leave tens of thousands of future children unnecessarily disadvantaged and living in poverty.

The precise effect on new births from the 22 states set to enact broad abortion bans if Roe v. Wade is overturned is impossible to predict. But public health experts like Diana Greene Foster — the lead researcher on the Turnaway Study, an enormous survey project that tracked the long-term effects of receiving or being denied an abortion — expect a meaningful increase in the number of women with an unwanted pregnancy who nevertheless give birth. Middlebury College economics professor Caitlin Knowles Myers anticipates as many as 75,000 people who want an abortion but can’t get one will end up giving birth in the first year after Roe is overturned.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23057032/supreme-court-abortion-rights-roe-v-wade-state-aid

Crisis Pregnancy Centers, State-Funded Harm, and State-Based Solutions

As the Supreme Court evaluates abortion laws, states should bolster reproductive rights and better regulate CPCs.

Feb 14, 2022
Amal Bass, The Regulatory Review

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to review whether Mississippi’s pre-viability abortion ban is still unconstitutional, and the Court’s failure to enjoin Texas’s near-total abortion ban, have thrown a spotlight on the precarious state of abortion rights in the United States. These cases come after decades of abortion restrictions—mostly at the state level—that have already made abortion inaccessible for many people, especially Black and brown people, individuals living in poverty, and people in rural areas.

For example, the federal Hyde Amendment prohibits the use of federal funding for abortion care, and Pennsylvania law prohibits the use of state funding. The resulting denial of abortion coverage for people in Pennsylvania’s Medicaid program disproportionately harms Black and brown people who face structural inequities that make them more likely to live in poverty than white people.

Continued: https://www.theregreview.org/2022/02/14/bass-crisis-pregnancy-centers-state-funded-harm-state-based-solutions/

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

USA – Crisis Pregnancy Centers: Money for Nothing

Crisis Pregnancy Centers: Money for Nothing
Despite unprecedented taxpayer investment, state-funded crisis pregnancy centers deliver few services

By Mary Tuma
Fri., July 20, 2018

"They won't tell you this wherever they do these things, but it's a very big risk. You may never be able to conceive children. There's about a 90% chance you may never be able to have children down that road."

That was one of the misleading and deceptive messages imparted to Laura Gorsky and Breanne Wenke by crisis pregnancy center counselors during a March visit to the TruCare pregnancy resource center in South Austin. While there, Gorsky and Wenke were also sold a slew of other medically unproven information about abortion, including negative mental side effects and emotional distress, false claims debunked by the American Psychological Association. The procedure, they were warned, was "very painful," and they would "hear the vacuum sucking the fetus out."

Continued: https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2018-07-20/crisis-pregnancy-centers-money-for-nothing/