Missouri's Multi-Million Dollar Appropriation to 'Crisis Pregnancy Centers' Comes Under Fire

In the run up to his successful election as governor, Eric Greitens did pretty much everything he could to boost his conservative bonafides. He rubbed shoulders with Trump. He pew-pew-pewed some guns on TV. But now that the dust has settled, abortion rights activists are hoping he'll investigate whether the state should continue shuffling millions of dollars of state tax credits and federal funds to "crisis pregnancy centers" like Thrive St. Louis.

"Our concern is about the marriage between a lack of regulation and what these organizations are doing," says Pamela Merritt, co-director of Reproaction. The activist group, which is holding a "visibility event" outside Thrive's St. Louis offices at 10 am today, has launched Facebook ads, a mobile billboard and a petition to grab the governor's attention.

At issue is the roughly $3 million the state earmarked for 2017 to fund the state's Alternatives to Abortion Services Program, which provides financial support (and tax credits) to Thrive and 68 other centers. In addition, the state also bolsters the centers' operations with federal welfare funding known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF.

Granted, states are allowed to choose how to distribute their TANF funds, but over the past five years or so Missouri has shrunk its welfare rolls from more than 100,000 in 2011 to just 37,000 in 2016, according to a report by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. That means leftover federal money — and the 2017 budget calls for about $4 million to fund groups like Thrive.

Read more: http://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2017/04/06/missouris-multi-million-dollar-appropriation-to-crisis-pregnancy-centers-comes-under-fire