Update: You did it! Shortly after signing the budget, the Shapiro Administration announced they will be allowing the longtime contract with Real Alternatives to expire at the end of the year.
Just in: After refusing to sign the budget, the Pennsylvania Senate just announced they will reconvene Thursday August 3 at 1PM to sign the budget, which means it will head to the Governor’s desk very soon.
We hope you join us in urging Governor Shapiro to veto the secret CPC funding increase and restore TANF funding where it belongs: supporting Pennsylvanians in crisis, not financing the anti-abortion CPC industry.
With no debate or transparency, the Pennsylvania Senate slipped a 30% increase to anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) into the proposed budget.
Medical experts call CPCs “unethical.” ACOG, the professional organization of obstetricians and gynecologists, define CPCs as “certain facilities that represent themselves as legitimate reproductive health care clinics providing care for pregnant people but actually aim to dissuade people from accessing certain types of reproductive health care, including abortion care and even contraceptive options.”
CPCs can be dangerous: A Kentucky whistleblower revealed her CPC was not properly sterilizing transvaginal probes. A Massachusetts woman alleged she suffered a life-threatening fallopian tube rupture after a CPC failed to spot an ectopic pregnancy. A recent expose showed a “counselor” falsely assert that suicide was “a very common problem” after an abortion. (This is false.)
A recent study of the crisis pregnancy center industry showed that 65% of CPCs in Pennsylvania promoted false or misleading information. Many promote “abortion pill reversal,” a rogue practice ACOG warns is “not based on science and do[es] not meet clinical standards.”
Unethical organizations that target pregnant people with disinformation and made-up “treatments” should not receive any public funds, yet the secret bump in this year’s budget pushes Pennsylvania’s funding of CPCs to a whopping $9.3 million dollars.
Worse, unless we stop it, some of that money will be siphoned out of TANF, a program intended to support Pennsylvanian children in poverty, low-income pregnant women, and people with disabilities.
Pennsylvania is one of only a handful of states to double-fund crisis pregnancy centers using money intended to help people in poverty.
It is time to urge Governor Shapiro to veto the funding increase and restore TANF funding where it belongs: supporting Pennsylvanians in crisis, not financing the anti-abortion CPC industry!
Contact Governor Shapiro by calling his office at 717-787-2500 and/or via email or on twitter, facebook, and Instagram.
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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