(The Daily Signal) Media outlets on the Left constantly berate pro-lifers and accuse them of forgetting about children after they’re born.
They push false narratives that the pro-life movement wants to deprive women of opportunities and prevent children from obtaining a safe and fair upbringing.
In actuality, pro-lifers have a long history of assisting women and families with options, materials, and a hopeful message that supports their lives.
Concretely, pro-life states across the country have spent the first six months of 2023 enacting a wide array of measures to support mothers and their children, especially in the post-Roe v. Wade era.
New research shows 60% of women with a history of abortion would have preferred to give birth if they had received either more emotional support or had more financial security, indicating “choice” is more complicated and a lot less free than the abortion lobby would have Americans believe.
Pro-life states are stepping up to address reasons women might feel abortion is their only option, making life a realistic answer for millions of pregnant mothers across the country.
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Several new state budgets are expanding funding for alternatives to abortion programs, which provide life-affirming services to women.
Texas’ biennial budget provides $70 million per year to the state’s alternatives to abortion programs. Tennessee’s new budget provides abortion alternative services with $20 million for the upcoming fiscal year of 2024. Florida’s Heartbeat Protection Act provides alternatives to abortion services with $30 million over the next two years.
Governors in each of those states are helping to take the lead. Pro-life states are clearly putting their money where it counts to uplift the lives of mothers and babies.
Tax credit policies have likewise been expanded, incentivizing donations to life-affirming resources and lightening the load of parents raising their children. Pro-life states, such as North Dakota, Utah, and West Virginia, have increased the value of state adoption tax credits.
That makes the decision to adopt easier and supports children who desperately need a home. Many pro-abortion states, such as New York, do not even have adoption tax credits. Moreover, the adoption tax credits in pro-life states are often much higher, such as in Missouri, where the limit is $10,000, while California’s limit is $2,500.
In addition to those adoption tax credits, some states also offer tax credits to businesses that donate to pregnancy resource centers. Those states, including Louisiana and Kansas, incentivize financial support for organizations that affirm and support life.
Adoption remains an expensive proposition in the United States, with a private adoption costing as much as $60,000, yet the adoption of each child into a permanent home results in positive family-building and is accompanied by some financial savings.
The combination of federal and state adoption credits now means roughly half the cost of a higher-cost private adoption is covered by these policies. The federal credit is $15,950 for 2023. Each child who finds a loving “forever home”? Priceless.
Child-support enforcement and expansion have also become a focus of recent state pro-life legislation. Several states have enacted measures that enable mothers to seek child support beginning during their pregnancies.
Georgia law clarifies that once a fetal heartbeat is detected, child support payments must begin. Legislation across the nation, such as in Utah, ensures that men pay 50% of women’s pregnancy care and baby-delivery needs. Those actions guarantee that those co-responsible for the pregnancy participate in supporting the mother and child.
By beginning payments when the child is in the womb, mothers have financial support through any challenges arising in their pregnancies.
Amid these encouraging decisions supporting moms and babies, many pro-abortion government leaders are taking action to prevent moms from getting the support they need. Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, repeatedly vetoed tax credits for donations and funding toward alternatives to abortion. Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, also a Democrat, likewise vetoed a popular bill that protected life in the womb and provided pregnancy support services.
Thankfully, the Kansas and North Carolina pro-life legislatures overrode many of their governors’ vetoes. By contrast, in Minnesota, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor legislative majority stripped the omnibus bill of provisions that would make a wide array of baby products, such as cribs and car seats, exempt from sales taxes.
Recent state legislation clearly highlights that pro-lifers have been the most active in protecting children in and out of the womb. With these recent policies, moms will be empowered to choose life for their children, and men will be encouraged to do their part. The children whose lives are being protected through state heartbeat bills continue to be supported throughout childhood by these pro-life safety-net policies.
On the other hand, states with radical pro-abortion policies repeatedly leave their mothers who do choose life in the lurch.
This isn’t the narrative many in the left-wing media want Americans to hear, but it is the real story on the ground as the nation seeks a way forward out of abortion on demand.
Editor's note: Abigail Adams is a research intern at the Charlotte Lozier Institute. Charles A. "Chuck" Donovan is president of the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the research and education arm of the Susan B. Anthony List. Donovan serves on the Board of Directors for Heartbeat International, which manages Pregnancy Help News. This article was originally published by The Daily Signal, the Heritage Foundation's news platform.
