Taxpayer-funded Crisis Pregnancy Centers in Texas: Deceiving Texas Women with your Tax Dollars
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MONDAY JULY 20, 2009 CONTACT: Sara Cleveland Tel. 512-462-1661 Taxpayer-funded Crisis Pregnancy Centers in Texas: Deceiving Texas Women with your Tax Dollars NARAL Pro-Choice Texas Foundation Urges Close Scrutiny of Applicants for Controversial Program AUSTIN – Last week, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission released a Request for Proposal seeking an organization to implement a controversial and widely criticized “alternatives to abortion” program. This $8 million program will be funded by taxpayers. “This program continues to represent every bad stereotype in government. It was created in a backroom deal, and provides millions to promote an extreme political view. The contractor who has benefitted from this earmark has consistently failed to meet even their modest, self-identified goals. Even worse, given the short timeline laid out by the HHSC and the specificity of the Request for Proposal, this is essentially a no-bid contract. It’s very likely that this under-performing contractor will receive millions more in taxpayer funds,” said Sara Cleveland, Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas Foundation. She continued, “I share Texans’ outrage not only over the inefficiency of this project – but that the consequences of projects like this leave thousands of women struggling for health care.” Texas Pregnancy Care Network (TPCN), the current contractor, has received $8 million in Texas tax dollars over four years to fund unregulated crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) that often mislead and misinform women about their healthcare options while offering virtually no true healthcare services. According to a projection made by the Texas Department of State Health Services when this program was first implemented in 2005, at least 16,000 Texas women per year have lost access due to funding these centers rather than traditional family planning and health care services. Through annual reports published since the program’s inception in 2005, NARAL Pro-Choice Texas has found that this program is grossly inefficient, fails to offer recommended services for pregnant women and potentially endangers women’s health by offering medically inaccurate information. Furthermore, through research performed this summer, several TPCN CPCs not only proffer medically inaccurate information to pregnant Texas women but also fail to adhere to the standards of the Federal Charitable Choice Act and even the guidelines set by TPCN to remain non-judgmental and non-denominational. More information regarding TPCN and this controversial report can be found here: http://www.prochoicetexas.org/issues/cpcs.shtml. ###
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