State funding for “disaster being pregnant facilities,” or anti-abortion facilities, isn’t new.
However Tennessee is aiming to interrupt a document: Lawmakers there are contemplating a budget proposal from Republican Gov. Bill Lee that will give $100 million to those pretend clinics in a single 12 months.
In keeping with the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, disaster being pregnant facilities have a 5-to-1 funding benefit over respectable abortion clinics, thanks partially to state funding. Some states even divert funding from federal packages meant to assist low-income households to CPCs.
Texas beforehand gave $100 million to CPCs over two years. In Tennessee, funneling $100 million in a single 12 months to CPCs would make the state the national leader in funding anti-abortion pretend clinics.
This additionally comes at a time when Tennessee is slicing again on sexual well being companies. Earlier this 12 months, state officers selected to stop accepting federal funds for HIV prevention and remedy.
First, Tennessee knowledgeable Deliberate Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi—its main accomplice in HIV companies—it might longer obtain these funds. Relatively than battling it out when Deliberate Parenthood pushed again, the state merely withdrew from the federal HIV funding program totally.
Why does all this matter? Along with deceptive folks about abortion, CPCs are more and more promoting STI testing companies. Nevertheless, analysis reveals these companies hardly ever observe public well being tips.
For instance, one research by researchers with the Crisis Pregnancy Center Map discovered that almost 1 / 4 of CPCs that provided testing for at the very least one STI didn’t present on-site remedy or remedy referrals. Most that provided testing solely examined for 2 STIs.
CPCs additionally fail to counsel people on constant condom use—in truth, they actively discourage the usage of contraception, together with condoms.
CPCs oppose condoms and often discourage their use by means of #scaretactics. Condoms successfully stop #STIs, together with #HIV. #scienceworks (5/5) pic.twitter.com/y9JyKMI1s8
— CPC Map (@CPCMap) July 1, 2021
Nationally, STI charges have been already on the rise, and so they surged throughout the pandemic. Since 2017, there was a 68 percent increase in infectious syphilis and a 25 % enhance in instances of gonorrhea.
After a number of years of declining HIV charges, there was a 16 % enhance in new HIV instances in 2021. That’s regardless of a dramatic decrease in testing charges, suggesting many HIV infections could possibly be going undetected.
Individuals of coloration, significantly Black and Latinx folks, expertise disproportionately excessive charges of HIV an infection, particularly within the South—the identical area most affected by abortion bans.
As abortion clinics—which regularly present different sexual and reproductive well being companies—shut, folks have fewer choices for care. By funding CPCs as a substitute of high-quality, complete sexual well being companies, states are fanning the hearth of a sexual well being disaster.
This publish was tailored from a Twitter thread.
