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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2023 - 2024
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | March 16, 2023 03:54 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Melissa L. Shusterman |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | End Funding for Deceptive Organizations |
| Since the 1990s, Pennsylvania has provided taxpayer money to crisis pregnancy centers. In 2020-2021 alone, over $7 million in state funds were allocated to these organizations.[1] Crisis pregnancy centers purport to provide medical services to pregnant women and birthing people but instead engage in deceptive practices to prevent them from accessing appropriate reproductive medical care. In PA, one out of six babies is born to a mother who has not received adequate prenatal care.[2] Shockingly, none of the state-funded crisis pregnancy centers in PA provide prenatal care.[3] Additionally, none of these centers in PA provide contraceptive care.[4] The damage these organizations inflict upon people cannot be overstated. Crisis pregnancy centers have also been known to promote abstinence-only “sexual education” and LGBTQ+ conversion therapy, practices that endanger - not protect - human health. Everyone deserves to have their reproductive health respected; the damage crisis pregnancy centers exert amounts to a public health emergency. In addition, in 2017, the Auditor General found that Pennsylvania has also provided funds for the activities of crisis pregnancy centers out-of-state, an egregious abuse of taxpayer dollars.[5] I am introducing legislation that rectifies this issue by ending the practice of providing state funds to these organizations in the Fiscal Code. Please join me in co-sponsoring this bill to end Pennsylvania’s practice of funding deceptive organizations. [1] Dep’t of Hum. Servs, 2020–2021 Budget Hearing Book 1, 163–68 (Feb. 2020), available at https://www. dhs.pa.gov/docs/Publications/Documents/Budget%20Information/20-21%20DHS%20Blue%20Book.pdf.
[2] https://alliancestateadvocates.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/107/Alliance-CPC-Study-Designed-to-Deceive.pdf
[3] id
[4] id
[5] Press Release, Pennsylvania Auditor, Auditor General DePasquale Outraged at Legal Cover Up Attempt Involving $30.2 million State Contract with Real Alternatives (Mar. 16, 2017), http://www.paauditor.gov/pr ess-releases/auditor-general-depasquale-outraged-at-legal-cover-up-attempt-involving-30-2-million-state-contract-with-real-alternatives. |
Introduced as HB1118