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Thirty-five Arkansas pregnancy help organizations have applied for shares of a $2 million taxpayer-funded grant to bolster their services.
Pregnancy help organizations, often called pregnancy resource centers or crisis pregnancy centers, encourage pregnant Arkansans to give birth and do not perform or affiliate themselves with abortion in any way. The organizations are often religiously affiliated.
Adoption agencies and maternity care homes are also eligible for the grants.
The taxpayer-funded program’s first two years of financial aid allowed several facilities to increase their visibility, often through digital marketing, and gain more clients as a result, according to many of the applications the Advocate obtained through the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.
The Department of Finance and Administration will disburse the funds for the third year in a row. The state Legislature instituted the $1 million grant program in 2022 and doubled the available amount earlier this year.
The 35 applicants requested a cumulative $1,830,133, with the vast majority of individual requests at or near $50,000.
All but one of last year’s 27 beneficiaries applied for this year’s grant, as did one that received funds in the 2022-23 grant cycle but did not apply last year. One other, Highlands Maternity Home in Hot Springs, applied last year but did not receive a grant.
The remaining seven applicants have not applied before, including the Russellville-based nonprofit Arkansas Pregnancy Network Inc. Most of Arkansas’ dozens of pregnancy resource centers operate independently, but in August 2023 some center directors touted their shared mission and services, including their coordination as the Arkansas Pregnancy Network, to the Legislature’s Joint Public Health committee.
The nonprofit formed in June 2022, around the time Arkansas’ near-total abortion ban went into effect.
Republican leaders statewide have held up pregnancy resource centers as critical since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and left abortion access up to individual states. Arkansas had a “trigger law” in place to outlaw abortion in nearly all circumstances, unless the pregnant person’s life is at risk, immediately upon the court’s ruling.
The pregnancy resource center grant was in place before the trigger law, and some center directors said they were initially hesitant to apply for the grant out of fear that accepting government money could restrict their religious missions, even if the money would help them expand their services.
Religious activities are still permissible, but grantees should use the state money on non-religious costs and services, according to state guidance.
Arkansas’ neighbors Tennessee and Texas also direct public funds to anti-abortion centers. Nationwide, states increased their funding for these centers by nearly half a billion dollars in the two years since Roe v. Wade was overturned, according to a report from Equity Forward, a research organization that supports abortion rights.
Democratic lawmakers said in April, when presented with the proposal to double the grant fund, that they were concerned the centers would mislead pregnant Arkansans into believing that they had received prenatal health care. Many pregnancy resource centers provide ultrasounds, pregnancy tests and sexually transmitted infection tests, but not all center employees or administrators are licensed medical professionals.
Some lawmakers have said they see these facilities as tools to help reduce infant, child and maternal mortality in the state. Arkansas has among the nation’s highest maternal and infant mortality rates, according to the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement.
The state’s finance department received the 35 applications in July and expects to distribute the money later this year after the Legislature finalizes the rules for the program, department spokesman Scott Hardin said.
Targeted advertising
Arkansas Pregnancy Network’s application for nearly $50,000 states that the organization runs a “statewide telehealth care program that serves as a rapid intervention layer” for pregnant Arkansans. The program launched Feb. 29 and has since directed 20 people to pregnancy resource centers, where they chose to continue their pregnancies, the application states.
The group aims to use targeted advertising and search engine optimization to reach people whose online activity suggests they might have an unplanned pregnancy. Many pregnancy resource centers have outlined this goal in their applications since 2022 and said contracting with Google’s advertising arm helps achieve this goal.
“We have found that the majority of women seeking abortion will utilize Google,” the application states. “We want to be the first name she sees when searching online for ways to get an abortion. We have realized that we have not slowed down the number of women in our state that are seeking an abortion by means of travel or ordering pills online, and we know that by reaching her first, babies will be saved.”
Google Maps regularly directs users throughout the country to anti-abortion pregnancy centers when they search for abortion providers, Bloomberg News reported in August 2022. The Guardian reported in June 2023 that Google made $10 million from ads directing abortion seekers to these centers in the year since Roe v. Wade’s reversal.
Arkansas Pregnancy Network’s statements in its application about Arkansans obtaining abortions via medication or interstate travel echo pregnancy resource center directors’ comments to lawmakers last year.
Medically induced abortions come from a two-pill regimen: mifepristone, which blocks the hormone that keeps fetal tissue alive, and misoprostol, which expels the tissue from the body.
Some pregnancy resource centers said in their applications that they offer “abortion pill reversal” — the claim that the effects of mifepristone can be reversed before taking misoprostol.
This claim is not supported by science, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
First-time applicant ChoiceCare in Russellville stated in its request for $45,048 that “the need for digital marketing is crucial” due to “the rise” in Arkansans seeking abortions via medication or out of state.
ChoiceCare’s nurse manager is Christie Robertson, who is also executive director of Arkansas Pregnancy Network, according to both applications.
Robertson was executive director of the 1st Choice center in Fort Smith in 2022 and said she would not apply for the grant at the time due to restrictions on religious uses of the grant money.
Arkansas Pregnancy Network’s board president and vice president, Vikki Parker and Dana Schwiethale, are also pregnancy resource center directors who said they would not apply for the grant in 2022 for the same reason. The centers they operate still have never applied for the grant.
1st Choice in Fort Smith applied for the grant last year because “there was no small print,” then-executive director Sara Short said, and received $23,770.50. The center applied again this year, seeking $49,850.
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Other uses of the grant
Besides advertising, applicants requested funds for:
Baby clothes, formula, bottles, car seats, diapers and other baby supplies
Prenatal, birthing and parenting classes and materials
Rent and utilities
Part-time or full-time staff salaries
Staff training from Heartbeat International, an Ohio-based anti-abortion group with which many pregnancy resource centers are affiliated
Three applicants — Arkansas Pregnancy Network, Pathways Resource Center in Texarkana and Pregnancy Resource Center for Southwest Arkansas in Arkadelphia — also sought funds for different types of insurance, such as general liability, medical liability, property and cybersecurity, according to their applications.
Acts of Hope, a center in Blytheville, had only four clients in July 2023 but had 40 a year later thanks to the $26,230.95 in grant money it received in January 2023. The center’s local state representative wrote to the Arkansas finance department a letter of support attached to the application.
“This is a major accomplishment that shows how invaluable the center is to our community,” said Rep. Joey Carr, a Blytheville Republican. “…It is my honor to support their application.”
Part of the requested $48,776 will fund ultrasound services at the center for the first time, its application states.
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