Red states boost support for anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers; blue states move to stop them

A College Area Pregnancy Services (CAPS) clinic is seen Tuesday, June 26, 2018, in San Diego. The Supreme Court on Tuesday effectively put an end to a California law that forces anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers to provide information about abortion.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced this week that crisis pregnancy centers may now apply for $20 million in state-funded grants. Earlier, when he requested the funding, Lee told lawmakers that the state had “a moral obligation” to increase funding for these centers ”to support strong Tennessee families.”

The new grant program is supposedly aimed at improving access to maternal health care in a state that has instituted one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion bans since last year’s Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and eliminated the constitutional right to abortion.

Since the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, every free-standing abortion clinic in Tennessee has either shut down or stopped providing abortion services. Tennessee is also one of 10 states—mostly in the South—that did not expand Medicaid coverage to nearly all adults with incomes up to 138% of the Federal Poverty Limit under the Affordable Care Act.

RELATED STORY: Republican abortion policy creates its own form of birth control

The Tennessean reported that the Republican governor is a founder and previously served on the board of directors of a Nashville-based crisis pregnancy center named The Hope Clinic. These centers are not licensed medical facilities. They supposedly provide counseling services to pregnant women, support for parents considering adoption, and some financial help for new mothers. Critics say the centers are mostly faith-based facilities that provide misleading and inaccurate anti-abortion counseling to women in crisis.

Pennsylvania’s Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has taken a completely opposite tack. Last month, he announced that the state was ending its contract with Real Alternatives, which operates 27 crisis pregnancy centers throughout the state. Pennsylvania’s official government website quoted Shapiro as saying:

“For decades, taxpayer dollars have gone to fund Real Alternatives. My Administration will not continue that pattern—we will ensure women in this Commonwealth receive the reproductive health care they deserve. Pennsylvanians made clear by electing me as Governor that they support a woman’s freedom to choose, and I will be steadfast in defending that right.”

Real Alternatives received $7.2 million in state and federal funding over the past budget year, and more than $134 million in total state funding since it became the sole contractor for the Department of Human Services’ Alternatives to Abortion Services program in the 1990s, The New Republic reported.

On Wednesday, The Washington Post published an in-depth report on the growing partisan battle over state funding for faith-based anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers. Since the June 2022 Dobbs decision, Republican-led states have moved to boost funding for these centers, while Democratic-run states have been trying to cut any state funding and impose tighter regulations. The Post reported:

This year, GOP-majority legislatures in 12 states passed 25 bills providing at least $250 million in new taxpayer funds or tax credits for crisis pregnancy centers, according to data collected by the Guttmacher Institute and Equity Forward, organizations that support abortion rights. That contrasts with seven similar bills passed in seven states totaling at least $115 million in 2021, before the Supreme Court’s decision.

The number of states providing direct taxpayer funding to the centers has increased since 2021 from five states to nine states, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Four states also offer tax credits to the centers after two GOP legislatures passed bills this year, with Mississippi offering up to $10 million in tax breaks for donors.

[...]

The [crisis] centers now outnumber abortion clinics nationally by a 3-to-1 margin, according to the University of Georgia’s Crisis Pregnancy Center Map, and have flourished in states where there are no longer any abortion clinics, such as Tennessee, which has 60, and Texas, which has 198 centers.

Since the Dobbs decision, crisis pregnancy centers have come under increased scrutiny because they have taken on a more prominent role in the anti-abortion movement. Despite the increase in government grants in red states, most of their funding comes from private donors. According to the Post, The Charlotte Lozier Institute, a research arm of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said in a 2020 report that “at least 90 percent of total funding for centers is raised through private donations.”

Andrea Swartzendruber, a leader of the Georgia mapping project, which supports abortion rights, told The Post that her group has identified the location of more than 2,500 crisis pregnancy centers across the U.S. “We have seen that the states that have worked the hardest to either totally ban or severely restrict abortion have also worked to fund crisis pregnancy centers in new ways,” she said.

But it’s not just abortion-rights advocates who have raised the alarm about the crisis pregnancy centers. The American Medical Association urged “that public funding only support programs that provide complete, non-directive, medically accurate health information to support patients’ informed, voluntary decisions.”

And the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) published an issue brief that urged people “to recognize and avoid facilities, such as crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs), run by people who operate unethically and with the intention to dissuade, deter, or prevent them from seeking certain reproductive health care options,” including “abortion care and even contraceptive options.”

ACOG said that crisis pregnancy centers “endanger public health” by causing delays in accessing legitimate health care; spreading medical misinformation about so-called abortion pill “reversal”;  lacking privacy, security, and accountability; and targeting marginalized and vulnerable populations.

The group’s policy recommendations included holding crisis pregnancy centers “accountable for deceptive practices by … enforcing and strengthening consumer protection laws” and ensuring that “government funding goes only to legitimate health care organizations that provide comprehensive, medically accurate, and nondirective counseling and referrals.”

Democratic-led states have been adopting such policies by cutting funding to crisis pregnancy centers and passing laws creating penalties for misleading women to discourage them from seeking an abortion, the Post reported.

Even before the Dobbs decision, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer used a line-item veto in 2019 to cancel $700,000 of funding for Real Alternatives centers in her state, and she has vetoed spending on similar centers in the years since, calling them “fake health centers.”

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed legislation in July to apply the state’s consumer protection statute to crisis pregnancy centers if they disseminate misleading or untruthful information. The law allows a judge or jury to award up to $50,000 in civil penalties for each act of fraud or deception proven in court.

“Women need access to comprehensive, fact-based health care when making critical decisions about their own health—not manipulation or misinformation from politically motivated, non-medical actors,” Pritzker said. He added the law means “ensuring Illinoisans can make their own decisions about their bodies using accurate and safe information.”

Vermont and Colorado have also passed laws giving state attorneys general the power to investigate complaints and levy fines against crisis pregnancy centers that use deceptive or fraudulent practices, according to the Post.

But these efforts to tighten regulations on the centers are now being challenged in court by anti-abortion groups on First Amendment grounds.

Last month, a federal judge granted an injunction to block the new Illinois law from going into effect, in response to a lawsuit brought by the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, a national network of crisis pregnancy centers.

Attorney Peter Breen, executive vice president of the Thomas More Society who is representing the centers, called the injunction a victory for free speech.

“And so the judge recognized that we had also argued that these are not uncontroversial topics when you're talking about abortion. That is the most controversial topic in our country today. And the government has no place in saying, well, this has been misinformation or this is true or this is false," Breen said.

Pritzker, interviewed on CNN, defended the law:

"I'm confident this is constitutional. It's legal. Remember what they're doing. They're putting their crisis pregnancy centers next door to abortion rights centers, and they're directing people to go in their front door or telling them things that aren't true, often.

“And when that's the case, they ought to be held liable. They - there ought to be a private right of action for anybody that's dissuaded or told, you know, something that's false. That's the important thing.” 

RELATED STORY: Are tests that identify use of the 'abortion pill' coming to a red state near you?

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The Tennessean reported that the Republican governor is a founder and previously served on the board of directors of a Nashville-based crisis pregnancy center named The Hope Clinic. These centers are not licensed medical facilities. They supposedly provide counseling services to pregnant women, support for parents considering adoption, and some financial help for new mothers. Critics say the centers are mostly faith-based facilities that provide misleading and inaccurate anti-abortion counseling to women in crisis.

Pennsylvania’s Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has taken a completely opposite tack. Last month, he announced that the state was ending its contract with Real Alternatives, which operates 27 crisis pregnancy centers throughout the state. Pennsylvania’s official government website quoted Shapiro as saying:

“For decades, taxpayer dollars have gone to fund Real Alternatives. My Administration will not continue that pattern—we will ensure women in this Commonwealth receive the reproductive health care they deserve. Pennsylvanians made clear by electing me as Governor that they support a woman’s freedom to choose, and I will be steadfast in defending that right.”

Real Alternatives received $7.2 million in state and federal funding over the past budget year, and more than $134 million in total state funding since it became the sole contractor for the Department of Human Services’ Alternatives to Abortion Services program in the 1990s, The New Republic reported.

On Wednesday, The Washington Post published an in-depth report on the growing partisan battle over state funding for faith-based anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers. Since the June 2022 Dobbs decision, Republican-led states have moved to boost funding for these centers, while Democratic-run states have been trying to cut any state funding and impose tighter regulations. The Post reported:

This year, GOP-majority legislatures in 12 states passed 25 bills providing at least $250 million in new taxpayer funds or tax credits for crisis pregnancy centers, according to data collected by the Guttmacher Institute and Equity Forward, organizations that support abortion rights. That contrasts with seven similar bills passed in seven states totaling at least $115 million in 2021, before the Supreme Court’s decision.

The number of states providing direct taxpayer funding to the centers has increased since 2021 from five states to nine states, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Four states also offer tax credits to the centers after two GOP legislatures passed bills this year, with Mississippi offering up to $10 million in tax breaks for donors.

[...]

The [crisis] centers now outnumber abortion clinics nationally by a 3-to-1 margin, according to the University of Georgia’s Crisis Pregnancy Center Map, and have flourished in states where there are no longer any abortion clinics, such as Tennessee, which has 60, and Texas, which has 198 centers.

Since the Dobbs decision, crisis pregnancy centers have come under increased scrutiny because they have taken on a more prominent role in the anti-abortion movement. Despite the increase in government grants in red states, most of their funding comes from private donors. According to the Post, The Charlotte Lozier Institute, a research arm of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said in a 2020 report that “at least 90 percent of total funding for centers is raised through private donations.”

Andrea Swartzendruber, a leader of the Georgia mapping project, which supports abortion rights, told The Post that her group has identified the location of more than 2,500 crisis pregnancy centers across the U.S. “We have seen that the states that have worked the hardest to either totally ban or severely restrict abortion have also worked to fund crisis pregnancy centers in new ways,” she said.

But it’s not just abortion-rights advocates who have raised the alarm about the crisis pregnancy centers. The American Medical Association urged “that public funding only support programs that provide complete, non-directive, medically accurate health information to support patients’ informed, voluntary decisions.”

And the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) published an issue brief that urged people “to recognize and avoid facilities, such as crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs), run by people who operate unethically and with the intention to dissuade, deter, or prevent them from seeking certain reproductive health care options,” including “abortion care and even contraceptive options.”

ACOG said that crisis pregnancy centers “endanger public health” by causing delays in accessing legitimate health care; spreading medical misinformation about so-called abortion pill “reversal”;  lacking privacy, security, and accountability; and targeting marginalized and vulnerable populations.

The group’s policy recommendations included holding crisis pregnancy centers “accountable for deceptive practices by … enforcing and strengthening consumer protection laws” and ensuring that “government funding goes only to legitimate health care organizations that provide comprehensive, medically accurate, and nondirective counseling and referrals.”

Democratic-led states have been adopting such policies by cutting funding to crisis pregnancy centers and passing laws creating penalties for misleading women to discourage them from seeking an abortion, the Post reported.

Even before the Dobbs decision, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer used a line-item veto in 2019 to cancel $700,000 of funding for Real Alternatives centers in her state, and she has vetoed spending on similar centers in the years since, calling them “fake health centers.”

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed legislation in July to apply the state’s consumer protection statute to crisis pregnancy centers if they disseminate misleading or untruthful information. The law allows a judge or jury to award up to $50,000 in civil penalties for each act of fraud or deception proven in court.

“Women need access to comprehensive, fact-based health care when making critical decisions about their own health—not manipulation or misinformation from politically motivated, non-medical actors,” Pritzker said. He added the law means “ensuring Illinoisans can make their own decisions about their bodies using accurate and safe information.”

Vermont and Colorado have also passed laws giving state attorneys general the power to investigate complaints and levy fines against crisis pregnancy centers that use deceptive or fraudulent practices, according to the Post.

But these efforts to tighten regulations on the centers are now being challenged in court by anti-abortion groups on First Amendment grounds.

Last month, a federal judge granted an injunction to block the new Illinois law from going into effect, in response to a lawsuit brought by the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, a national network of crisis pregnancy centers.

Attorney Peter Breen, executive vice president of the Thomas More Society who is representing the centers, called the injunction a victory for free speech.

“And so the judge recognized that we had also argued that these are not uncontroversial topics when you're talking about abortion. That is the most controversial topic in our country today. And the government has no place in saying, well, this has been misinformation or this is true or this is false," Breen said.

Pritzker, interviewed on CNN, defended the law:

"I'm confident this is constitutional. It's legal. Remember what they're doing. They're putting their crisis pregnancy centers next door to abortion rights centers, and they're directing people to go in their front door or telling them things that aren't true, often.

“And when that's the case, they ought to be held liable. They - there ought to be a private right of action for anybody that's dissuaded or told, you know, something that's false. That's the important thing.” 

RELATED STORY: Are tests that identify use of the 'abortion pill' coming to a red state near you?