State of Arkansas Accepting Grant Applications from Pregnancy Help Organizations

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The State of Arkansas has begun accepting grant applications from pro-life pregnancy help organizations. The grants are part of the state’s 2023 Pregnancy Help Organizations Grant Program for the 2023-2024 budget cycle.

In April, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed Act 622 of 2023 authorizing $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.

Under Act 622, the Department of Finance and Administration distributes this grant funding to eligible organizations that provide women and families with alternatives to abortion.

This $1 million in grant funding will help offer women actual pro-life assistance in the face of an unexpected pregnancy.

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, Ohio recently raised its state budget for pregnancy resource centers to $14 million per biennium.

In Tennessee, legislators appropriated $20 million for pro-life organizations that provide alternatives to abortion. Florida’s state budget allocates $30 million pregnancy help organizations.

The Texas Legislature budgets $50 million per year to its abortion alternatives program.

And Kansas — where some 405 women from Arkansas had abortions in 2022 — will provide $2 million to pregnancy centers.

In June the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration finished awarding $1 million in grant funds to pregnancy help organizations as part of the 2022-2023 budget cycle. Now the state is preparing to award another million dollars by June 30, 2024.

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. That is what this grant funding will help do.

This grant money will support women and families in Arkansas, and it will help build a culture of life in our state. That’s something to celebrate.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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Ballot Committees Vying to Pass Constitutional Amendments in Arkansas

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With only a year until the 2024 elections, ballot committees are vying to place proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot in Arkansas.

For example, the group Restore Election Integrity Arkansas recently filed paperwork indicating it will work for an amendment requiring elections to use secure paper ballots.

Arkansas Citizens for Truth, Justice, and the American Way likewise has announced it plans to work for passage of five constitutional amendments: one repealing the state sales tax on used cars; another lowering the state sales tax on new vehicles; a third amendment abolishing property tax for individuals over age 65; an amendment to strengthen Arkansas’ Freedom of Information Act; and an amendment “to concern casinos in Arkansas.”

The group notes that these amendments would be for the 2026 election cycle.

The organization Arkansans for World Class Education continues raising funds in the state, according to reports filed with the Arkansas Ethics Commission.

The group worked unsuccessfully to place the “Public Schools Amendment of 2022” on the ballot last year. Among other things, that proposed amendment would have removed the provision in the Arkansas Constitution that lets the legislature make laws concerning the State Board of Education.

The committee Arkansans for Cannabis Reform signaled last year that it might try to place a marijuana amendment on the 2024 ballot, but has reported no activity since then. In 2020 the group unsuccessfully worked to place a recreational marijuana amendment on the ballot.

Although no official ballot committee has formed yet, it is possible the abortion industry will attempt to use Arkansas’ petition process to place an abortion amendment on the ballot in 2024.

Late last year, pro-abortion groups released statements to the media listing Arkansas as one of the places where they would like to pass an abortion amendment.

In January our team intercepted a political poll asking voters in Arkansas a series of questions about campaign messaging for an abortion amendment. 

For example, some of the poll questions were along the lines of, “Does the statement, ‘This amendment safeguards reproductive freedom’ make you more likely or less likely to vote for the amendment?”

More than one national pro-life  leader has told us that they have heard rumors about pro-abortion petition drives kicking off in Arkansas ahead of 2024 as well.

If that happens, the next 12 months could be a critical time for the pro-life movement in Arkansas.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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