On a recent episode of Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver focused on how Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), a key part of the U.S.’s woefully inadequate safety net, has been “relentlessly abused.”
TANF is the only federal safety-net program intended to provide temporary monthly cash assistance to families experiencing extreme poverty. The program is intended to help pregnant people, families with children, and children in poverty living with caretakers who are not on the program. To qualify in Pennsylvania, you can’t possess more than $1,000 in cash and assets.
The problem: TANF rates haven’t been raised since 1990 and states have raided this fund and diverted this cash to other programs.
As John Oliver said on the program: “At its absolute worst, TANF money can be used in actively harmful ways like funding crisis pregnancy centers … at least 10 states have siphoned millions of TANF dollars to pay for them.”
One of those states is Pennsylvania, where only 25 out of every 100 people who qualify for TANF receive it—yet the state allows anti-abortion executives and activists to dip into that fund.
Forty percent of TANF recipients are “child only,” meaning children without adults in their household receiving assistance. The public money siphoned by anti-abortion activists every year could support almost 3,000 children in crisis for an entire year.
WLP’s Tara Murtha, a co-author of the landmark report Designed to Deceive: A Study of the Crisis Pregnancy Center Industry in Nine States, recently appeared on Fox43 in Harrisburg to talk about why public health advocates are concerned about funding crisis pregnancy centers with money intended for Pennsylvania families.
The Pennsylvania Department of Human Services (DHS), which administers the CPC contract, stated they “reaffirmed the Shapiro Administration’s stance in the right to choose alternatives to abortion.”
The “alternative to abortion” is prenatal care, not state-funded anti-abortion lectures. None of the state-funded CPCs in Pennsylvania provide prenatal care.
DHS added they have “serious concerns” with deceptive practices at CPCs, and for good reason: almost 65% of CPCs in Pennsylvania promote false and misleading medical claims.
Our privacy is also at stake: While they try to appear to be community-based, most CPCs are storefronts for a global network of anti-abortion organizations and can function as an anti-abortion digital surveillance dragnet.
It Gets Worse
Real Alternatives, the state-funded anti-abortion organization that oversees a chain of 28 CPCs, has been the subject of serious allegations of misuse of public funds—allegations that have yet to be addressed by Pennsylvania authorities.
Michigan defunded Real Alternatives in 2019 in response to a similar public complaint. Pennsylvania, however, has continued to pour money into the organization while failing to adequately address the allegations or physician testimony warning that CPCs harm public health.
Meanwhile, more than 2 million children are living in poverty in Pennsylvania, and maternal mortality continues to skyrocket.
Learn more about the crisis pregnancy center industry here. Download a fact sheet on CPCs in Pennsylvania here.
Take Action
If you oppose TANF funds being taken away from Pennsylvania families and children in need and dispersed to anti-abortion executives and crisis pregnancy centers, express your opposition by contacting:
- Your state Representative
- Your state Senator
- Governor Shapiro
Please send an email, tweet, and post on Facebook and other social media!
Women’s Law Project is a non-profit public interest law center in Pennsylvania devoted to advancing and defending the rights of women, girls, and LGBTQ+ people in Pennsylvania and beyond.
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