The Office of Family Assistance says programs that assist pregnant women do not prevent out-of-wedlock births.
The federal Office of Family Assistance has proposed a change to welfare policy that would defund pregnancy resource centers offering alternatives to abortion.
The centers make it possible for pregnant women to keep their babies by helping them build a stable life by providing parenting classes, baby clothes, diapers, and sometimes a monthly payment to bridge them into housing or work. The agency wants fewer babies born to single mothers.
“The Biden administration has had an agenda for the last three years of pushing every single woman towards abortion,” Katie G. Daniel, state policy director at Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told The Epoch Times.
“By removing pregnancy centers as a partner with this funding, once again they’re putting their thumb on the scale.”
The Office of Family Assistance, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, provides $16.6 billion annually to states through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program.
States use some TANF funds for monthly welfare payments directly to low-income families with children.
Other TANF funds help families through work-related activities, child care, and refundable tax credits.
States have flexibility in operating programs designed to help families achieve economic self-sufficiency, according to the HHS website. The programs must work toward one or more of these four goals of the Office of Family Assistance:
- Provide assistance to needy families so that children may be cared for in their own homes.
- End the dependence of needy parents on government benefits by promoting job preparation, work, and marriage.
- Prevent and reduce the incidence of out-of-wedlock pregnancies
- Encourage the formation and maintenance of two-parent families.
The proposed rule change aims to “increase program integrity, clarify allowable uses of TANF, and reduce obstacles for individuals trying to access support,” HHS said in an October statement.
In some instances, states have used TANF funds to pay for activities with, “at best, tenuous connections to any TANF purpose,” HHS said in the notice of rule change. More than $1 billion has been spent on college scholarships, including for middle- and high-income individuals without children, HHS said.
By Beth Brelje
