Oklahoma lawmakers aim to give $2 million dollars to the state’s roughly three dozen crisis pregnancy centers.
House Bill 2592 would appropriate the funding to the Oklahoma State Department of Health to make grants under the Choosing Childbirth Act, which took effect in 2017.
The organizations, also called pregnancy resource centers, work to persuade women to carry unintended pregnancies to term rather than have abortions. Opponents of the grants point out many are religiously affiliated.
"Catholic Charities traditionally, obviously, with the Catholics. Hope Pregnancy Centers, traditionally, are funded mostly by the Baptist General Convention. The Enid Clinic, Deaconess Pregnancy Center would just be a few. Birth Choice," said Rep. Jon Echols, who wrote HB2592.
Critics, including the American Medical Association, say crisis pregnancy centers often pose as medical clinics but are not licensed to provide those services and spread misinformation about abortion or impede access to it.
"Do you feel that it’s fair to the women of Oklahoma to be fraudulently drawn into a clinic under misleading circumstances?" Rep. Denise Brewer asked Echols.
"So, I don’t really know how to answer that, because I don’t know that that has ever occurred," Echols said. "But I do think it is wonderful for the citizens of the state of Oklahoma to give women in a desperate situation options and to give them real options as to how they could chose life, and we could support them in that regard."
The AMA said crisis pregnancy centers target low-income women, women of color, adolescents and less-educated women.
Echols was asked why the legislature doesn’t consider increased funding for contraceptive programs or improved sex education.
"Some of these PRCs, by the way, do offer birth control. So, that is covered under this section. We also have comprehensive sex education taught in our classes right now," Echols said. "So, I don’t think because something else might work means that this won’t."
HB2592 passed the House 79–19. The 19 votes against the measure all came from Democrats, though three joined the chamber's Republicans in voting for it. The title is off the bill; legislation cannot become law without a title.
