By Benjamin Clapper, Executive Director
In Louisiana, numerous pregnancy resource centers participate in the Alternatives to Abortion (ATA) program administered by the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services that is funded through Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program funds. Louisiana is one of six states to use TANF funds to fund pregnancy centers, and currently, Louisiana dedicates $1 Million to the ATA program with another million available as the program grows.
The ATA program provides a critical service in Louisiana, assisting pregnant women and newborns up to 12 months after birth. The ATA programs provide to needy families intervention services including crisis intervention, counseling, mentoring, support services, and prenatal care information, in addition to information and referrals regarding healthy childbirth, adoption, and parenting to help ensure healthy and full-term pregnancies as an alternative to abortion.
In State Fiscal Year 2022, the Louisiana ATA program provided the following services to TANF-eligible women in Louisiana who faced unplanned pregnancies:
Louisiana Right to Life is concerned that the Biden Administration’s new Health and Human Services rule could hard the work that these centers do to help mothers. Instead of deferring to a state’s authority and knowledge of local needs, bureaucrats in the Biden Administration will be scrutinizing how pro-life states choose to provide assistance to needy families.
In response to the rule, not only did Louisiana pregnancy centers submit comments to the Biden Administration to oppose the new rule, but Louisiana Representative Larry Bagley, Chairman of the Louisiana Health and Welfare Committee, signed a letter to HHS Secretary Xavier Berreca with legislators from five other states opposing the rule. Click here to read the letter.
We call on Secretary Berreca and the Biden Administration to withdraw their proposed rule and provide states like Louisiana the freedom to serve needy citizens in the manner most effective for our state.
