Texas House Votes to Cut $20 Million from Air Quality Budget to Fund Anti-Abortion Program
After more than 15 hours of debate, the Texas House passed its two-year, $218.2 billion state budget early Friday morning. One of the biggest winners? Anti-abortion activists.
Two House Republicans, Rep. Mike Schofield and Rep. Matt Krause, successfully moved $20 million in two year's worth of funds from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality into the state's Alternatives to Abortion program.
Dubbed a "pro-life" decision, the move will cut programs that specifically combat air pollution and boost funding for religious centers that offer no medical services.
Texas' Alternatives to Abortion program (A2A) funnels money directly to "crisis pregnancy centers" — Christian-run facilities (often disguised as actual doctors offices or clinics) with a streamlined goal to discourage women from getting an abortion. Despite wearing doctor's lab coats, the staff at these centers, referred to as CPCs, rarely have a background in health care and are forbidden from conducting any real medical exams. In fact, some of these clinics are even located near an actual clinic that provides prenatal health care and abortions (CPCs, of course, provide neither), and many women enter assuming they've come to a normal medical clinic.
Read more: http://www.sacurrent.com/the-daily/archives/2017/04/07/texas-house-votes-to-cut-20-million-from-air-quality-budget-to-fund-anti-abortion-program
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