Updated: Arkansas Risks Lagging Behind Other States on Pregnancy Center Funding
Last year, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed Act 622 of 2023 renewing the state’s annual funding for pregnancy help organizations.
Under Act 622, the Department of Finance and Administration will distribute $1 million in state-funded grants for crisis pregnancy centers, maternity homes, adoption agencies, and social services agencies that provide material support to women with unplanned pregnancies between now and June 30, 2024.
This grant funding provides women and families with alternatives to abortion.
To date, the State of Arkansas has successfully distributed nearly half of this funding to pregnancy help organizations.
While this funding is good, Arkansas actually runs the risk of lagging behind other states when it comes to funding alternatives to abortion.
Since the 2022 Dobbs decision reversing Roe v. Wade, state legislatures around the country have ramped up state funding for pregnancy help organizations. For example:
In Tennessee, legislators have appropriated $20 million for pro-life organizations that provide alternatives to abortion.
Florida’s state budget allocates at least $25 million for pregnancy help organizations.
The Texas Legislature now budgets $70 million per year for its abortion alternatives program.
And Kansas—where some 405 women from Arkansas had abortions in 2022—provides $2 million to pregnancy centers.
In terms of per capita spending, Arkansas would need to budget approximately $2.1 million for alternatives to abortion to be on par with Kansas and $7.1 million to be equivalent with Texas.
Now that Roe v. Wade has been reversed and abortion is generally prohibited in Arkansas except to save the life of the mother, the state needs to take steps to make abortion unthinkable and unnecessary. Public grant funding for pregnancy help organizations does that.
That is why Family Council intends to be back at the state capitol when lawmakers convene next week to work for an even larger appropriation that will provide funding for Arkansas’ pregnancy centers in the coming fiscal year.
This grant funding literally is an investment in Arkansas’ future generations.
Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.
This article has been updated to better reflect the per capita amounts Arkansas would need to allocate to provide funding comparable to Texas and Kansas.
