Red state legislatures are spending more tax dollars on faith-based anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers, and federal funding may soon follow. Meanwhile, Texas is increasing oversight of wasteful state-funded centers, and a Massachusetts lawsuit over botched diagnosis could slow the movement’s momentum.
Crisis pregnancy centers emerged in the 1960s as a part of the pro-life movement and have mushroomed into big business. Rooted in the conservative Christian desire to prevent abortions, the centers advertise help for pregnant women but often are not staffed by qualified medical personnel. Across the nation, there is little regulation of such centers.
Anti-abortion advocates praise the centers as an effective means of preventing abortion and counseling women to continue pregnancies. Critics see the centers as engaging in deception and practicing medicine without a license.
States spent more than $1 billion funding crisis pregnancy centers between 1995 and 2024, with nearly half that total coming after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, according to a study by Equity Forward, which supports abortion rights.
States spent more than $1 billion funding crisis pregnancy centers between 1995 and 2024.
The country’s crisis pregnancy centers had combined revenue of $1.7 billion in 2022 and held assets totaling $2.3 billion, according to tax filings analyzed by another abortion rights group.
It’s not clear what those taxpayer funds have yielded because states have been lax in oversight and reporting. Funds are awarded, but few questions are asked.
Mike Johnson
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a pro-life evangelical, recently hailed the more than “2,700 pregnancy resource centers” in the U.S. and said the federal government soon would give these centers some of the funding that will stop flowing to Planned Parenthood according to Trump’s “big beautiful bill,” which he signed into law July 4.
“We’re absolutely making it clear to everybody that this bill is going to redirect funds away from big abortion and to federally qualified health centers,” Johnson said.
Currently, most crisis pregnancy centers are unlicensed and unregulated, lacking the medical know-how to qualify as health centers. But Congressional legislation or a Trump executive order could change the rules and qualify them for federal funds.
Critics say that would be a dangerous mistake for millions of American women, citing a litany of problems with the centers, which have been charged with:
- Deceiving vulnerable women by using online ads that suggest they provide abortion services or referrals, things they refuse to do
- Routinely offering women misinformation about their pregnancies or the risks of abortion
- Pressuring or shaming women into keeping their babies
- Employing workers who lack health training who misinterpret sonograms and other tests they offer
- Lying to women by falsely telling them their pregnancies are beyond the legal limits for abortions or abortion medications
A Massachusetts woman who got a positive result from a home pregnancy test went to a center called Clearway Clinic after seeing its Google ad. The woman claims the center’s nurse failed to diagnose her ectopic pregnancy and counseled her to continue her pregnancy.
The woman soon experienced massive internal bleeding that required emergency surgery and resulted in the loss of her fallopian tube. The woman filed a class action lawsuit, Jane Doe v. Clearway Clinic, Inc., charging Clearway with deceptive trade practices and medical malpractice.
Clearway initially claimed its nonprofit status protected it from such claims before settling the suit.
Texas has given $438 million to crisis pregnancy centers since it started funding them 20 years ago.
Texas has given $438 million to crisis pregnancy centers since it started funding them 20 years ago. As in most states, spending has ballooned, reaching nearly $200 million for the past two years.
Much of that $438 million has been awarded with little or no oversight, resulting in a cascade of waste and abuse documented by reporters from ProPublica and CBS News:
- Many clinics overcharged the Texas government for services by billing separately for services, including diapers and informational brochures, at a flat rate and pocketing the surpluses.
- Two clinics used their surpluses to invest in real estate.
- One clinic used its surplus to quintuple the value of its assets.
- One clinic “spent taxpayer money on vacations, on a motorcycle and to fund a smoke shop business owned by its president and CEO.”
Texas is now instituting changes, including selecting centers competitively rather than relying on one contractor, and requiring centers to document their expenses.
Raising money is no challenge for most centers, said John Crowder, a Christian and former pregnancy center board chairman who testified in Idaho against state funding for the centers.
“Being privy to our financial records, it was clear that we had no difficulty in raising the funds necessary to fulfill our mission without government handouts,” Crowder testified. Idaho remains among the red states that provide no funding to crisis pregnancy centers.
A committee of state legislators in Idaho voted down a bill that would have provided $1 million to centers in the state.
Some legislators supported a draft resolution opposing funding for the centers. After Stanton Healthcare, which operates centers in Boise and Meridian, threatened to sue, legislators opted for a resolution opposing funding for clinics that do not follow state medical standards.
Florida provides $29.5 million a year to Florida Pregnancy Care Network, which doles out funds to other centers across the state.
North Carolina has awarded $49 million to crisis pregnancy centers since 2013, $33 million of that since Roe was overturned. State legislators there have introduced bills seeking greater oversight of the clinics, but likelihood of passage is uncertain.
In Iowa, seven centers share $1 million in state funding, but recipients have not been required to report their results.
Arkansas, which has a total abortion ban, offers $2 million in annual taxpayer-funded grants, up from $1 million. Some of the funding has been used for digital ads to reach more women.
Both Missouri and South Carolina are considering a similar tax-credits-for-donations legislation.
Care Net, a nationwide network of more than 1,200 centers, says it has saved more than 1 million babies from abortion since 2008. Care Net was founded in 1975 by disciples of Francis Schaeffer, who wanted to offer women viable alternatives to abortion.