Having canceled the contract with Real Alternatives, Gov. Shapiro now sends “alternatives to abortion” designated funding to organizations that promote and fund abortion facilities.
(HARRISBURG, PA – January 24, 2024) Gov. Josh Shapiro’s unilateral decision to end the “alternatives to abortion” contract with Real Alternatives is leading to additional taxpayer funding going to “family planning” groups – organizations that financially supplement abortion facilities in Pennsylvania.
The Shapiro administration announced that the former “Alternatives to Abortion” program – now called “Women’s Service Program” – will give taxpayer-funded grants to four organizations covering six regions in Pennsylvania for services starting in January 2024. The four grantees are: 1) Adagio Health, 2) Maternity Care Coalition, 3) Family Health Council of Central PA, and 4) Maternal and Family Health Services.
All four organizations have already been receiving taxpayer-funding before this new program. Three of the four grantees are current “Family Planning Councils” which receive taxpayer funding through the state’s “Family Planning Services” program. In 2020 alone, records show over $50 million in taxpayer funding was received by these “family planning” councils, which disperse taxpayer-funded grants to various regional groups, including Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses in PA.
“The bottom line in all this: if you’re a taxpayer in Pennsylvania, you’re being forced to give the abortion industry a raise,” stated Michael Geer, President of Pennsylvania Family Institute. “This new program guts the longstanding “Alternatives to Abortion” contract that supported the great work of pregnancy resource centers and maternity homes across our state, and instead is now funneling those tax dollars through organizations that push a pro-abortion agenda.”
The Maternity Care Coalition, though not a “family planning council,” gains the majority of its revenue from taxpayer funding (77-percent in FY 2022) and has extensively promoted pro-abortion politics – of the very kind that benefit Gov. Shapiro. Here are some quotes:
- Abortion “should be safe and accessible to all pregnant and parenting families regardless of their ability to pay.” 6/24/22
- “Any restriction to [abortion] is going to result in worse outcomes.” 7/18/22
- “Standing up for abortion rights and reproductive justice has never been more important.” 12/15/22
“Gov. Shapiro is finding more ways to fund the abortion industry, as all four grantees to this new program push pro-abortion politics in Pennsylvania,” added Geer.
The funds for this new program were previously earmarked for organizations that met an urgent need in the community – providing vulnerable women with pregnancy tests, STD testing, material goods like maternity clothes and infant and child clothing, diapers, formula, baby furniture, and other material needs. The “Women’s Service Program” does not include many of these services.
With this latest action by the Shapiro administration, Pennsylvania’s abortion industry, comprising 18 abortion facilities, is awarded still more new taxpayer-funded revenue streams while continuing to fail women by profiting from abortions. Complications from abortions have tripled in PA in the last five years. And abortion facilities continue to fail state inspections. Last year, half of all abortion facilities in Pennsylvania failed a health inspection. Since 2012, abortion facilities in Pennsylvania have failed 179 state inspections.
