By Anna Claire Vollers, Stateline.org
After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade final yr, Louisiana Republican state Sen. Beth Mizell regarded for a strategy to handle her state’s abysmal document on toddler and maternal mortality, preterm births and low beginning weight. Louisiana has one of many nation’s strictest abortion bans, with no exceptions for rape or incest.
Mizell and her colleagues borrowed an thought from neighboring Mississippi: a state tax credit score program that sends thousands and thousands annually to nonprofit being pregnant useful resource facilities, additionally known as disaster being pregnant facilities. They’re personal anti-abortion organizations, usually religiously affiliated, that usually provide free being pregnant assessments, parenting courses and child provides. They are usually not normally staffed by medical doctors or nurses, although some provide restricted ultrasounds or testing for sexually transmitted infections.
“I see [pregnancy resource centers] as a touchpoint for pregnant women who may not know where to go for services or where to begin,” Mizell mentioned. Louisiana has roughly 30-40 being pregnant useful resource facilities scattered throughout the state. “If we don’t use everything with an open mind to give women the services they need, we’re only hurting women in our state.”
Legislators in states with a few of the strictest abortion bans are pouring thousands and thousands into being pregnant useful resource facilities, portray them as options to poor beginning outcomes and the dearth of entry to enough prenatal and postpartum care. But whereas Republican lawmakers have more and more positioned being pregnant useful resource facilities as a backstop for maternal well being care, critics say these taxpayer {dollars} must be used to shore up extra complete medical and social providers.
Mizell’s invoice, which was signed into regulation in June and went into impact Aug. 1, permits each people and firms to assert an revenue tax break for donations made to being pregnant useful resource facilities, which the regulation calls “maternal wellness centers.” The tax credit are capped at $5 million per yr. Mississippi handed an identical tax credit score regulation final yr and expanded its cap this yr to $10 million yearly.
In 2017, Missouri turned the primary state to difficulty tax credit for donations to being pregnant useful resource facilities and it just lately eliminated its restrict on what number of tax credit the state can difficulty. Alabama, Kansas and Nebraska thought of their very own tax credit on this yr’s legislative classes.
The tax breaks are a lot bigger than these awarded for donations to most different sorts of charities.
Some critics of Louisiana’s new regulation query its value, when so many residents battle to get prenatal care.
“We have many areas around the state where there are no obstetricians, no birthing centers and it’s very difficult for people to get access to prenatal care,” mentioned Michelle Erenberg, government director of Lift Louisiana, a reproductive rights advocacy group.
“I think these centers are trying to rebrand as being maternal care centers. But they’re not providing any actual medical services. They’re not licensed. They’re not regulated. Is that a good value for $5 million a year of Louisiana’s tax dollars?”
‘What could be bad?’
Matt Mitchell, the CEO of Oasis Medical Center in Corinth, Mississippi, calls his middle “the best first stop for pregnancy concerns.”
Located within the rural northeast nook of the state, Oasis is a being pregnant useful resource middle that doesn’t provide complete medical care, however does present being pregnant assessments, non-diagnostic ultrasounds, testing for sexually transmitted infections, adoption referrals, parenting courses and group useful resource referrals, all without cost.
Mitchell doesn’t assume his middle’s function has modified because the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, he instructed Stateline in a written assertion, “but I think more people are aware of the important role we play.”
The Southeast is house to about 900 being pregnant useful resource facilities, greater than a 3rd of the nationwide complete, in keeping with the Crisis Pregnancy Center Map created by University of Georgia researchers Andrea Swartzendruber and Danielle Lambert.
“From a public health perspective, I think awareness about what crisis pregnancy centers are, their mission and goals, is really low,” mentioned Lambert. Her work with Swartzendruber has centered on the general public well being impression of being pregnant useful resource facilities, which they discovered are typically extra widespread in states with abortion bans.
“When we talk to policymakers and advocacy groups,” Lambert mentioned, “the narrative is, ‘What could be bad about helping women who are in need and pregnant?’ They have images on their websites of people in white coats.”
Swartzendruber has seen a “significant increase” just lately within the variety of being pregnant useful resource facilities that supply restricted, non-diagnostic ultrasounds or have modified their names in ways in which recommend they supply well being care. “But we’ve found on the whole, the services they’re offering aren’t in line with national medical standards,” she mentioned.
Louisiana’s new tax credit score regulation requires “maternal wellness centers” to offer sure assets to their purchasers, together with a listing of the closest OB-GYNs, in addition to data on making use of for Medicaid and federal meals help packages. And, as with the Mississippi and Missouri legal guidelines, the facilities can’t be related to abortion suppliers or refer purchasers for abortions.
“If I had put a requirement on the bill that they had to have a licensed medical provider there, I wouldn’t have had buy-in from the pregnancy resource centers because that’s too much of a financial burden on them and that’s not the role of the center,” Mizell mentioned.
Critics of being pregnant useful resource facilities say they usually use a bait-and-switch strategy, focusing on weak ladies by providing “abortion consultations” or “pre-abortion screenings” that unfold false claims in regards to the risks of abortion. Swartzendruber and Lambert mentioned they’ve documented cases of facilities offering misinformation about reproductive well being, together with about contraceptives.
Some facilities, comparable to Oasis in Mississippi, provide “abortion reversal” remedy. It’s a controversial observe that makes use of doses of the hormone progesterone to cease a medicine abortion after a affected person has accomplished the primary a part of the two-step abortion course of. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says the remedy will not be supported by science and doesn’t meet medical requirements.
A small 2019 research designed to check the effectiveness of abortion reversal was halted after three of the 12 contributors required a visit by way of ambulance to the hospital to be handled for extreme bleeding.
But Mizell mentioned she hasn’t seen proof of hazard or misinformation from the facilities.
“I just think it’s a paper tiger of an argument,” she mentioned. “We have 40-something of these centers all over the state, including in the rural areas. They’re not intimidating, and they have all of these buckets of information available and can point the pregnant person in the right direction.”
More bang on your buck
The tax credit score packages are structured to make donations to being pregnant useful resource facilities way more profitable for donors than contributions to different sorts of charities, mentioned Lillian Hunter, a analysis assistant on the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center who has studied how states have amended their tax insurance policies within the wake of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling that struck down constitutional protections for abortion.
This is as a result of a tax credit score permits filers to scale back their taxes owed, versus lowering their taxable revenue.
If you’re a Louisiana resident and also you donate $500 to a being pregnant useful resource middle and apply for a state tax credit score, you’ll scale back the whole quantity of state taxes you owe by $250, as a result of the tax credit score for that donation is 50% of the donated quantity. If you donated that very same $500 to every other charitable group, you’d save your self simply $21.25. This is as a result of your donation would cut back your taxable revenue by $500, and Louisiana’s prime state tax charge is 4.25%.
“It really privileges this type of donation over donations to every other charity,” Hunter mentioned. And whereas a handful of states have tax credit for different sorts of charitable donations, “they’re not typical.”
For instance, Missouri gives a 50% tax credit score for donations of $100 or extra to diaper banks. Its tax credit score for donations to being pregnant useful resource facilities is 70%, which suggests a donation of $100 to a diaper financial institution would lead to a $50 discount in state taxes, however the identical donation to a being pregnant useful resource middle means a $70 discount.
After Missouri lawmakers eliminated the restrict on what number of tax credit the state might difficulty for donations to being pregnant useful resource facilities, Missouri licensed greater than $7 million in tax credit for the facilities within the first quarter of 2022, in keeping with an evaluation by ProPublica. That soar was greater than 3 times larger than in every other quarter.
In Mississippi, Mitchell mentioned donations to his middle elevated after the state handed its tax credit score regulation final yr, and he hopes extra companies and particular person taxpayers will make the most of the expanded tax credit score this yr.
Transparency and oversight
It’s laborious to say what the impression of the tax credit will probably be on beginning outcomes. States with strict abortion bans and excessive numbers of being pregnant useful resource facilities, principally within the Southeast and Midwest, already are typically states with a few of the worst beginning outcomes.
“My biggest concern is that states enact these tax credits and don’t invest in programs that we know work, like expanding earned income or child tax credits,” mentioned Hunter, the analysis assistant on the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. They may spend much less on maternal well being or meals help packages, she mentioned, “because they already have something they can point to that they’re doing to help families.”
The principal creator of Mississippi’s tax credit score enlargement this yr was Republican House Speaker Philip Gunn, a vocal opponent of abortion rights. Last yr, he twice blocked bipartisan efforts to increase Medicaid protection in Mississippi for moms as much as 12 months postpartum.
Aside from the brand new tax credit score packages, not less than 18 states immediately fund being pregnant useful resource facilities by means of state grants and by funneling federal welfare {dollars} to them — and plenty of have bumped up their funding, in keeping with Equity Forward, a analysis and watchdog group centered on reproductive rights.
Some notable will increase in state spending on being pregnant useful resource facilities from 2022 to 2023 embody Florida’s enhance from $4.5 million to $25 million and Tennessee’s from $3 million to $20 million, in keeping with Ashley Underwood, director of Equity Forward.
The cascade of funding is thanks, partly, to organized nationwide being pregnant middle teams that “shop tactics across state lines,” she mentioned. She identified that Louisiana’s regulation even requires being pregnant useful resource facilities to be affiliated with a nationwide being pregnant middle group earlier than they’ll go on the state-approved donation record.
The Louisiana regulation additionally requires being pregnant useful resource facilities to self-report that they meet the standards to be eligible for tax-credit donations, together with that they provide details about native obstetricians and the right way to apply for presidency help packages. But the regulation doesn’t give the state division of well being regulatory authority over the facilities.
“I just think that if our tax dollars are being put towards this, whether it’s a direct program or a tax credit program, there needs to be more requirements that they show they’re actually doing something to improve maternal health outcomes,” Lift Louisiana’s Erenberg mentioned.
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