Obama's Pregnancy Assistance Fund: Family Preservation or Fueling Adoption?

My friend Kim brought this CNN blog post to my attention about the 25 million dollars annually that Health and Human Services plans to make available to States, Washington D.C., First Nations Tribes, and First Nations reservations in order to "provid[e] States the opportunity to link these families to health, education, child care, and other supports that can help brighten the futures of parents and their children” (source).

This sounds like the answer to the prayers of Family Preservation Advocates who long have been asking people to stop throwing adoption and abortion in the faces of expectant mothers and instead offer relief for the most common reasons why women have abortions or surrender children to adoption: lack of resources, poverty, and parenting responsibilities conflicting with school schedules and future goals.

But the thought came to my mind: "where exactly will this money be going to?"  My greatest fear is that this small amount of money is not being given to fortify state government programs that provide food stamps, health insurance, access to affordable child care and housing, and financial assistance but rather to entities and other so-called do-gooders that will promote their own special-interests and biases, meaning: ADOPTION.  It's already been determined that many Crisis Pregnancy Centers misuse government funding in order to proselytize and spread false information to pregnant women, will this just be more of the same?

That information can be found on the grant announcement page.  Here's some excerpts:

Higher Education Institutions
Higher Education Institutions may apply for funding.  While they may establish their own resources (e.g. child care on-campus), they are encouraged to link to already existing providers.

"If appropriate, provide referrals for prenatal care and delivery, postnatal care, enrollment assistance for health coverage under Medicaid and CHIP, infant or foster care, or adoption, to a student who requests such information. An office shall make such referrals only to service providers that serve the following types of individuals:

• Parents
• Prospective parents awaiting adoption.
• Women who are pregnant and plan on parenting or placing the child for adoption.
• Parenting or prospective parenting couples.

High Schools

"A State may use amounts received under a grant to make funding available to its State Attorney General to assist statewide offices in providing one or more of the following:

• Intervention services, accompaniment, and supportive social services for eligible pregnant women who are victims of domestic violence, sexual violence, sexual assault, or stalking.
• Technical assistance and training relating to violence against eligible pregnant women to be made available to the following:
• Federal, State, tribal, territorial, and local governments, law enforcement agencies, and courts.
• Professionals working in legal, social service and health care settings.
• Nonprofit organizations.
• Faith-based organizations.

Public Awareness

"A State may use grant funds to make funding available to increase public awareness and education concerning any services available to pregnant and parenting teens and women under this funding announcement, or any other resources available to pregnant and parenting women in keeping with the intent and purposes of this funding announcement.

Let's hope it doesn't yield more government-run websites like this one.

In the Glossary of Terms...
The term "Community Service Center" used in the announcement is clarified:

"COMMUNITY SERVICE CENTER - The term “community service center” means a non-profit organization that provides social services to residents of a specific geographical area via direct service or by contract with a local governmental agency."

Conclusion
In theory, this sounds great.  When I heard about it, I could immediately imagine more women and children getting the help that they need.  But this money is going to organizations that will claim to help women and children get the help that they need--and let's hope that they do.  I was hoping that this money would go to government programs that provide poverty relief and help families stay together.  However, it gives this money to groups and individuals who may have their own biases and may make referrals to adoption agencies and other biased groups.  This is said to be a political move on Obama's part to gain find common ground between Anti-Choice and Pro-Choice groups to provide funding for women who will bring pregnancies to term.

And indeed it does provide, if rather meager, monies toward helping women find resources so that they can bring a pregnancy to term if they choose to knowing that there are options out there to assist with parenting...only, those options clearly include surrendering children to adoptive parenting too.  Let's hope this money goes to neutral sources who want to truly help women and not to biased entities who will perpetuate myths, stereotypes, and push women to choose adoption.