Budget Proposal Includes $2M Investment in Maternal Wellness and Helping Women in Arkansas
A state budget proposal for Arkansas’ Department of Finance and Administration includes $2 million for pro-life charities that help women with unplanned pregnancies.
H.B. 1202 by the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee allocates funds for various state programs, grants, and administrative needs in Arkansas’ upcoming 2025-2026 budget cycle.
The measure includes $2 million in funding for grants to pregnancy help organization.
Under H.B. 1202, grant money could go to pregnancy resource centers, maternity homes, adoption agencies, and other charitable organizations that provide material support to women with unplanned pregnancies.
The State of Arkansas also could award funding to charities that promote infant and maternal wellness and reduce infant and maternal mortality by:
- Providing nutritional information and/or nutritional counseling;
- Providing prenatal vitamins;
- Providing a list of prenatal medical care options;
- Providing social, emotional, and/or material support; or
- Providing referrals for WIC and community-based nutritional services, including but not limited to food banks, food pantries, and food distribution centers.
The measure makes it clear that grant money could not go to abortionists or their affiliates.
Since 2022 Family Council has worked with the Arkansas Legislature and the governor to secure funding every year for pregnancy resource centers. These state-funded grants have helped support dozens of charities that assist women and children in Arkansas.
The grants are optional. Pregnancy resource centers are not required to accept public tax dollars if they do not want to. But for those who do receive grant money, the funding may make a tremendous difference.
Pro-lifers in Arkansas have worked hard to generally prohibit abortion. We need to work to make abortion irrelevant and unthinkable as well. Supporting pregnancy resource centers is one way we can do that.
Pregnancy resource centers provide women with real options besides abortion — making it less likely they will travel out of state or abortion or order illegal abortion drugs online.
H.B. 1202 will provide real support to women and families in Arkansas. You can read the budget measure here.
Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.
