PARTNER PERSPECTIVE
Anti-Abortion Centers: A Persistent Anti-Abortion Policy Directly Targeting Patients
Kimya Forouzan
Principal State Policy Associate, Guttmacher Institute
Anti-abortion centers, also known as crisis pregnancy centers, aim to prevent pregnant people from obtaining abortion care and contraception. While the landscape of abortion access has shifted in major ways in the aftermath of Dobbs, one persistent restrictive state policy has been state funding of anti-abortion centers.
Anti-abortion centers often pose as abortion clinics, use coercive and deceptive counseling, and target people with lower incomes: young people, immigrants, and people who live in rural areas with limited access to health care. Often, these anti-abortion centers are affiliated with religious entities. There are over 2,500 anti-abortion centers in the United States. They harm individuals by withholding key information from them, such as accurate medical information about their pregnancy; information on how state laws may impact their decisions around abortion; and that most do not have licensed medical staff.
Additionally, they often collect extensive personal data on patients and do not have secure systems in place to ensure confidentiality. Because they are most often not actual health care providers, they are not bound by health care privacy laws, such as HIPAA, which is especially concerning given the expansion of criminalization of pregnancy outcomes post-Dobbs.
These anti-abortion centers often receive funding from state governments, although they also exist in states that do not directly fund them, receiving donations through private funders or by religious entities. Often these anti-abortion centers are funded through direct line items on state budgets. In some instances, the funding draws from money allocated under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, program, which is intended to be used to help families experiencing financial hardship by providing help with housing, food, child care, and more.
In 2024, anti-abortion politicians sought to increase the scope and reach of these centers. While anti-abortion centers have been around for a long time, one reason that they have recently received an influx of money post-Dobbs is that anti-abortion politicians who have imposed total bans and other severe restrictions on abortion want to create the false impression that they care about pregnant people and families. Several states directly fund the centers through their annual budgets. Some examples include:
Texas funneled more than $140 million into these centers for fiscal year 2024–2025.
Kansas increased funding in 2024, awarding $2 million directly to the Kansas Pregnancy Care Network, an anti-abortion nonprofit.
Iowa removed requirements that the state’s health department had to post the criteria for its alternatives to abortion program providers online, further obscuring the entities receiving state funding.
These examples demonstrate that while opponents of reproductive and sexual health and rights have expanded their reach post-Dobbs, funding for anti-abortion centers remains central to their work. They also demonstrate how reproductive rights are deeply intertwined with other fights for justice. While individuals in these states struggle to make ends meet, pay for the health care they need, and feed their families, states are instead allocating money, including money intended to help families through TANF, to centers that are intended to deceive individuals and limit their access to full information and all their options regarding pregnancy.
Anti-abortion centers have been a persistent source of harm for many individuals throughout the country. However, there has been some success in curtailing their harm. For example, advocates in Pennsylvania were able to secure an end to funding for anti-abortion centers in 2023 after nearly 30 years of the state funneling money to Real Alternatives, an entity that distributed funds to anti-abortion centers and Catholic Charities. Advocates in Minnesota also successfully advocated for an end to anti-abortion center funding after more than 20 years. In Massachusetts, the Department of Public Health recently launched a campaign to warn residents of the harm of anti-abortion centers, which included billboards with these warnings.
While the anti-abortion movement has continued to evolve post-Dobbs, their persistent method of funding anti-abortion centers highlights what is at the core: taking away options and resources from people and violating their autonomy.