The NCGA is giving taxpayer money away to Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPC). They gave $1.3 million away in the budget they passed in 2017, and have increased the amount in the budget they passed in 2018 to $1.55 million! The money is going to three CPC umbrella organizations! These clinics are not health clinics, and they are often tied up in religion. Actions to take are at the end.
The 2017 NC state budget gave away $1.3 million to a Crisis Pregnancy Center (CPC) parent organization, Carolina Pregnancy Care Fellowship, an anti-abortion group that operates 8 clinics in North Carolina. The NC legislature gave away this money with no strings attached and no milestones or controls on services provided. The legislative majority had planned to give $1.3 million away to CPCs two years in a row.
In 2018, the Republicans who wrote the state budget behind closed doors raised that amount – they are now giving away $1.55 million, and they’ve made some changes to the taxpayer money recipients. This money isn’t going to health care for low income women, it isn’t expanding Medicaid to help low income women and men. Taxpayer money is being delivered to three CPC parent organizations, as follows.
- $1 million to the Carolina Pregnancy Care Fellowship (same one that benefited last budget)
- $300,000 to “The Human Coalition” which describes itself explicitly as opposing the “abortion industry.”
- $250,000 is going to a third anti-abortion pregnancy clinic, Mountain Area Pregnancy Services in Asheville.
See more on where the legislators are sending money at “Anti-abortion pregnancy clinics and Christian hunting clubs get money in NC budget,” News and Observer, 5/29/18. They raised it in a budget about which the legislative leadership manipulated the budget bill process so that there could be no discussion, changes or adjustments to the budget, and they funded bad things and unfunded or didn’t fund some important ones. See more about what they did at https://northcarolinanow.wordpress.com/2018/05/31/you-cant-believe-this-terrible-nc-state-budget/.
According to Naral Pro-choice North Carolina, North Carolina currently has about 114 anti-abortion pregnancy centers, which are also known as Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs). These are basically fake women’s clinics, and 94% of these do not employ any medical professionals (also Naral). These clinics are generally operated by religious organizations whose aim is to discourage abortion, not to provide health care, and the clinics have been found to give false and misleading information which delays or complicates women’s lives and health. North Carolina only has about 13 real abortion clinics, which also provide other women’s healthcare needs.
CPCs advertise and tell women they will help them if they are pregnant, but they basically exist to convince women not to get abortions – and many lie in the process. Some say outrageous things, like abortion causes cancer, or infertility. Some lie about how far along the woman’s pregnancy is, making the woman think she has more time to make a decision. These fake clinics masquerade as abortion clinics and mislead women.
Women need real clinics with real doctors and nurses. While the NCGA gives millions away to fake clinics, over 250,000 North Carolina women still don’t have health insurance because the NCGA has refused to expand Medicaid. They went after many more women when the NCGA also stopped funding safety net provider Planned Parenthood. Yet somehow they found $1.55 million to give to anti-abortion organizations that don’t actually provide medical care like cancer screenings, wellness visits, and STD testing that Planned Parenthood and other clinics provide.
Actions you can take.
- Share this post and these articles on social media.
- Write Letters to the Editor in your local newspaper(s).
- Write your own representatives in the NC House and the NC Senate. Look your representatives up at WhoRepresentsMe in NC.
- Write the leaders who subverted the process –
Senator Phil Berger at 919-733-5708, email Phil.Berger@ncleg.net
Rep. Tim Moore at 919-733-3451, email Tim.Moore@ncleg.net
Shortlink: https://wp.me/p22b2e-1G9
North Carolina NOW 
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