States have spent nearly $500 million on anti-abortion counseling centers since fall of Roe
States that ban or restrict abortion have flooded anti-abortion counseling centers with nearly $500 million in taxpayer funding since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago, according to a new report.
Equity Forward, a nonprofit advocacy group focused on issues including reproductive rights, analyzed budgets from 23 states that dedicate public funding to what are known as crisis pregnancy centers —groups that offer counseling and support services to pregnant women while trying to dissuade them from terminating their pregnancies. The study found that since 1995, those states sent more than $1 billion in taxpayer funds to such centers and that nearly half of that money, or $489 million, was appropriated in the last two years.
Many of the states dramatically increasing their financial support of these groups are the same ones restricting access to abortion.
When Florida passed its six-week abortion ban last year, it allocated $25 million to crisis pregnancy centers –a more than five-fold increase from the year before. Tennessee dedicated $20 million to the effort last year, up from just $283,000 in the year prior. Arkansas and West Virginia, which appropriated a combined $8 million, hadn't provided a single dollar to crisis pregnancy centers before 2022.
No state has spent more in taxpayer funding than Texas, which accounts for almost half of the total spending on these centers over the last three decades. Last month, a CBS News and ProPublica investigation found that the Texas program funneling money to these centers lacks safeguards, and is riddled with waste. The state agency that oversees the program acknowledged it doesn't monitor how tens of millions of taxpayer dollars are being spent.
Before the Supreme Court issued its ruling striking down a federal right to abortion in 2022, the state-run program funding anti-abortion counseling centers in Texas, Alternatives to Abortion, focused on convincing women to continue their pregnancies. Since the ruling, the program has been rebranded as a provider of material support for families in need. Last year, the program also received a new name: Thriving Texas Families.
Texas State Rep. Jeff Leach, a Republican and one of the program's strongest supporters, told CBS News and ProPublica earlier this year that despite CBS News' findings, he would continue to invest in the program.
"We're not only going to fund it to the tune that we have been," Leach said." We're going to double down on these efforts."
The CBS News/ProPublica investigation found that the program does little to document material support for young mothers, while other organizations with those goals, like the Austin Diaper Bank and the Nurse Family Partnership, could not secure adequate state funding to meet demand for such services.
In a statement, Equity Forward Executive Director Ashley Underwood criticized Texas and other states for prioritizing funding for these centers over evidence-based programs aimed at improving public health outcomes.
"At least a billion dollars that could have gone to improve maternal health and provide direct support to parents and families was instead poured into the coffers of organizations that face little to no oversight and fail to show a positive impact," Underwood said.
While some anti-abortion counseling centers offer ultrasounds and pregnancy tests, they are not licensed medical facilities and have been accused of spreading medical misinformation about abortion risks. Proponents argue the centers serve as a critical resource for families both during pregnancy and after birth, providing items including free diapers, car seats and baby clothes and parenting classes.
In addition to state funding, anti-abortion counseling centers are also receiving hundreds of millions of federal dollars, according to a separate report by research firm Health Management Associates. The analysis found $429 million was awarded to more than 650 crisis pregnancy centers from 2017 to 2023. The money, awarded to centers in nearly every state, came from a variety of sources including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the Teen Pregnancy Prevention program.
The fight over whether public dollars should be used to support these centers has been heating up since the beginning of the year, when the Biden administration proposed a rule that would restrict the Department of Health and Human Services from funding crisis pregnancy centers. House Republicans responded with legislation that would block that rule.
And last month, Democratic Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Maxwell Frost of Florida called on the Government Accountability Office to conduct a study examining how federal funding is being allocated to these centers.
"At a time when reproductive rights are under attack from MAGA at all levels, ensuring access to accurate and honest information regarding reproductive health is essential for millions of American women," Raskin said in a statement following the new report.
Frost, whose home state of Florida ranks second in public funding for the anti-abortion counseling centers since Roe was overturned, admonished Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in a written statement: "That Florida, under the anti-woman, anti-science failed leadership of Governor Ron DeSantis, has simultaneously nearly banned abortion while increasing funding more than any other state for predatory anti-abortion centers since the Dobbs decision is not surprising, and not acceptable."