Governor Tate Reeves has signed House Bill 1685, the Pregnancy Resource Act. The measure allows for businesses and individuals to contribute $3.5 million in tax credits to non-profit pregnancy resource centers across the state. Governor Tate Reeves says this is part of an overall initiative to ban abortions and aid families after birth.
Reeves says “They’re not just here to provide opportunities and options for those pregnant mothers, they’re also here to help once the babies are born.”
Erin Kate Goode is Executive Director of the Center for Pregnancy Choices Metro, a Christian faith-based non-profit. She says her facility could use this funding to offer people resources during and after pregnancy.
“If abortion is restricted because of the Dobbs case, that’s not going to be the end of unplanned pregnancies,” says Goode. “Women will still need support, and no woman should walk through that decision alone. And so pregnancy centers actually may be busier than ever.”
But pregnancy resource centers are not licensed medical facilities and are often focused on dissuading someone from getting an abortion. Michelle Colon is Executive Director of the reproductive rights group SHERo. She says these organizations can be harmful for pregnant people.
“Basically what it is, is facilities that are ran and managed by a bunch of anti-abortion activists,” says Colon. “Who like to trick folks, and basically spiritually and psychologically manipulate folks into going full term with their pregnancies and birthing a child that they did not want, or going through with a pregnancy they did not want.”
Abortion rights activists say the state should invest more into birthing centers or reproductive health clinics that can provide in-depth medical care and advice for pregnancies.
