Senators Debate Wasting Our Tax Dollars on Fake Pregnancy Centers Amid Budget Crisis
For Immediate Release 4/8/26
AAM Contact: paige@abortionactionmissouri.org
PPGR Action Contact: media@ppgr.org
PPGPV Contact: media@ppgreatplains.org
Missouri, statewide: Today, Wednesday, April 8, 2026, the Senate Committee on Economic Development accepted public testimony on SB 1547, a bill that includes language to increase the already inflated allocation of taxpayer dollars to unregulated pregnancy centers.
Unregulated pregnancy centers (sometimes called CPCs or Crisis Pregnancy Centers) are anti-abortion fake clinics that target pregnant people in crisis and try to manipulate them out of seeking abortion care. Missouri already spends the most per capita in the nation on these unregulated, anti-abortion pregnancy centers — and this year’s proposed budget includes even more: $2,033,561 from OUR General Revenue Fund, $50,000 from the Department of Social Services Federal Fund and $10,300,000 from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Federal Fund.
Missouri is staring down a budget crisis — working people and families are struggling to make ends meet, cover rent and mortgage payments, afford the high costs of insurance and increasingly access to education. Instead of ensuring Missourians’ hard work pays off and supports our families, Kehoe’s cronies in Jefferson City are scheming to defund our social safety nets, hike up sales tax on everything we spend money and now funnel MORE of our tax dollars towards secretive political organizations with anti-abortion agendas.
Pregnant and parenting people deserve support and resources but this bill is just a sneaky mechanism to fund inherently political, anti-abortion organizations with zero transparency. Most of these centers don’t provide resources unconditionally, and require clients to agree to not seek abortion care in order to access services. Now the state wants to direct billions of additional dollars to pay out these reimbursements, further straining the state’s already collapsing safety net and budget gaps. Kehoe doesn’t care about us or our families.
Missourians already decided that they want legal abortion. We shouldn’t be spending state dollars on organizations that exist to stop people from accessing abortion in the first place, let alone instead of spending our tax dollars on programs that actually support people, no strings attached.
Abortion Action Missouri
ACLU of Missouri
Beacon Reproductive Health Network
Planned Parenthood Great Rivers Action
Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes
Progress MO
Missouri Jobs with Justice
Missouri Workers Center
National Council of Jewish Women St. Louis
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People looking for accurate information about access to and support for abortion care right now can find it at INeedAnA.com and ReproLegalHelpline.org.
Paid for by Abortion Action Missouri Foundation, Allison Klinghammer, Board President, P.O. Box 63219, St. Louis, MO 63163
