Pennsylvania Governor Defunds Abortion Alternatives Program After 30 Years

Pet project of Planned Parenthood gets action

Planned Parenthood leaders met with newly sworn in Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, on Jan. 19, 2023. Left to right: Sydney Etheredge, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Western PA; Dayle Steinberg, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern PA; Gov. Josh Shapiro; Melissa Reed, CEO Planned Parenthood Keystone; Signe Espinoza, Executive Director of Planned Parenthood PA Advocates. Courtesy Planned Parenthood

Abortion provider Planned Parenthood has been a longtime donor to political campaigns for offices held by Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. It endorsed him for governor. Mr. Shapiro highlighted abortion in his inauguration speech, hired Planned Parenthood employees for his administration, and on his third day in office, hosted Planned Parenthood leadership at a meeting at the Capitol about expanding abortion access.

Planned Parenthood has had a few things on its wish list, including ending funding of crisis pregnancy centers. With the support of Democratic state lawmakers, there have been press conferences pushing the same idea at the Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg.

Now that agenda is coming to fruition.

Shortly after Mr. Shapiro signed the 2023–2024 budget on July 3, Pennsylvania Department of Human Services (DHS) Secretary Dr. Val Arkoosh announced the state’s contract with nonprofit Real Alternatives will end by Dec. 31.

Real Alternatives administers the Pregnancy and Parenting Support Services program for the state of Pennsylvania.

“In a few weeks, DHS will be soliciting applications for women’s health providers across the state to address women’s health needs,” the DHS stated.

The DHS didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.

“Pregnant women throughout Pennsylvania could be left without vital services if this critical contract is allowed to expire. For the sake of women across the Commonwealth, this outrageous action should not stand,” Maria Gallagher, legislative director at Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, told The Epoch Times in an email.

Dan Bartkowiak, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Family Institute, said Pennsylvania public policy has long advocated for childbirth over abortion.

“If a woman is pregnant, what they are trying to say is that abortion comes first,” Mr. Bartkowiak told The Epoch Times. “They don’t want anything to get in the way of a woman choosing an abortion. The majority of women that are pregnant will have their baby. Why are we not valuing people that are providing services to women who are going to raise their child or allow the child to be adopted? Why not have those types of resources? The Abortion Control Act says the public policy of the Commonwealth is to encourage childbirth over abortion.”

Real Alternatives

Funding pro-life activities has been a priority in Pennsylvania since the mid-1990s. Then-Pennsylvania Gov. Robert P. Casey, a strongly pro-life Democrat, added funding to the state budget for a program providing an alternative to abortion services. Real Alternatives has had a contract with the state for more than 27 years and in that time has served nearly 350,000 women, with 1.9 million office visits.

Real Alternatives refers women to 83 life-affirming pregnancy centers in Pennsylvania, including Catholic charities and social services agencies, pregnancy support centers, and maternity homes. Through these partners, it provides counseling services and pregnancy tests and helps to continue education and provide adoption resources. It also offers a host of programs for unexpectedly pregnant women and new mothers, including parenting classes, help finding housing, diapers, food, furniture, and other services. By design, it doesn’t provide medical services or point women to abortion.

Although 40 percent of abortion-minded women who use its services ultimately choose abortion, 60 percent choose life, according to Kevin Bagatta, president and founding CEO of Real Alternatives.

“If you say yes to life, we’re going to be there from the moment of conception through 12 months after birth,” Bagatta told The Epoch Times. “With Planned Parenthood, they do the abortion, they don’t see that client again.

“Our program is a program of time—spending time supporting and walking through the unexpected pregnancy and empowering her to overcome obstacles in her life for 21 months. That takes time. That takes money. And we reimburse our centers on a fee-for-service basis. You'll never hear me say we give money to the centers. We don’t. They earn it. They do the work. They submit a bill. We pay them an hourly rate on the amount of time they spend with the client. It’s a fee-for-service basis.”

For the fiscal year ending on June 30, Real Alternatives was funded through the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services at $7.263 million, under the line item “women’s service programs.” Mr. Bagatta told The Epoch Times that the line item was raised to $9.2 million in the new budget.

“How did we go from that to ‘we are not renewing the contract?’” he asked.

Shortly after the budget was signed, the state announced in a press release on Aug. 3 that Real Alternatives would be defunded.

Mr. Bagatta learned of it from the press release and said he was shocked.

“We believe the governor has been terribly misinformed about the need for the program and its success,” Mr. Bagatta said. “The governor has been misinformed to a degree where he’s taking a major safety net away from women experiencing unplanned pregnancies.”

‘No Place’ for Pro-Life Centers

The Pennsylvania Senate Women’s Health Caucus held a hearing on Oct. 28, 2022, titled “Deceptive Practices of Anti-Abortion Centers,” in which it targeted Real Alternatives. Participants expressed concern that Real Alternatives was partnering with centers that employed what it deemed misleading tactics.

“Anti-abortion centers or crisis pregnancy centers are found in every county of Pennsylvania, and in fact greatly outnumber licensed clinics that provide the full spectrum of health care services. Interesting fact—there are 156 crisis pregnancy centers in the Commonwealth and only nine abortion providers, so they’re in your neighborhood ... But you may not know exactly what is happening within those places,” Democratic state Sen. Judy Schwank, chair of the Women’s Health Caucus, said in the hearing.

Ultimately, however, the organization was targeted because of its focus on abortion alternatives.

During the hearings, pro-abortion witnesses testified that pregnancy resource centers tried to steer women to choose life, which is in fact, the stated goal of such centers.

Sen. Katie Muth, chair of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, cited language in Pennsylvania law that stipulates that the abortion alternatives program “may not promote, refer for or perform abortions, or engage in any counseling which is consistent with the stated mission of the promotion of childbirth.”

Ms. Muth said, “If you’re giving patient-centered care, then you’re giving patients all your options.”

“Anti-abortion centers have no place in our health care system,” Sen. Amanda Cappelletti, a Democrat, said. “As long as anti-abortion centers are operational, they will continue to use their deceitful tactics to prevent women and pregnant people from receiving the care that they need.”

The ‘Cute Baby Clothes’ Tactic

“These women or pregnant people are trying to seek care and are confused and misled by the way that they advertise and label their facility. I’ve heard stories from patients of being kept there for two or three hours, OK? Being shown ultrasounds that magnify the pictures, and—these are real stories—show them the picture of what may be an eight-week fetus,” the University of Pennsylvania’s Dr. Courtney Schreiber testified at the October hearing. Dr. Schreiber is the chief of family planning at the University’s Perelman School of Medicine.

Dr. Schreiber alleged that pregnancy counseling centers misled clients with regard to the gestational age of their unborn children.

“So now they think they’re too late for prenatal care,“ she said. ”They’re too late to make a decision about whether or not to have an abortion. And there’s cute baby clothes all over the place. Congratulations to them. So that they now feel like they actually don’t have access to any choices. They don’t have agency over their own body and their own decision making and that there is only one option for them, and that is carrying this pregnancy to term and delivering this baby.”

In its press release, the DHS describes Real Alternatives as “an organization that purports to provide counseling, referrals, and other services through partnerships with crisis pregnancy centers.”

The Shapiro administration intimated that the program was always meant to inform women about abortion. However, from the beginning, it was designed as an alternative to abortion.

Real Alternatives’ website traces the history of the funding it has received from the Pennsylvania state budget. That funding was specifically intended for a pregnancy and parenting support services program “intended to promote childbirth rather than abortion by providing pregnancy and parenting support service to women in crisis pregnancies.”

Real Alternatives states that it carefully vets its service providers to ensure that they “would never advertise under ‘Abortion Services, etc.’”

“Real Alternatives Service Providers do not ’trick' clients into thinking they are Abortion Facilities. Real Alternatives telephone counselors explain that we do not provide abortion services nor provide referrals for abortions,” the website’s FAQ page states.

‘A Huge Step Forward’: Abortion Advocate

“The Shapiro Administration is taking a huge step forward today by ending the Real Alternatives contract after 30 years. Every woman seeking reproductive health care has the right to unbiased, medically accurate care and counsel,” Dr. Arkoosh, a longtime abortion advocate, said in the release. “The Department of Human Services has an obligation to ensure our contractors and partners are acting in line with these values and being good stewards of taxpayer resources, and we will not relent on this commitment.”

“For decades, taxpayer dollars have gone to fund Real Alternatives. My Administration will not continue that pattern—we will ensure women in this Commonwealth receive the reproductive health care they deserve,” Mr. Shapiro said in the release. “Pennsylvanians made clear by electing me as Governor that they support a woman’s freedom to choose, and I will be steadfast in defending that right.”

Historically, per the fiscal code, DHS was required to administer funding to programs that provide alternatives to abortion services.

“No Commonwealth agency has licensing oversight of crisis pregnancy centers or how they assist pregnant women,” the release said. “The Shapiro Administration continues to unequivocally support a woman’s right to choose and access the full scope of reproductive health care. These services are essential, and Pennsylvanians deserve honesty and unbiased advice from those they trust with medical care or counsel.”