Startup woes bedevil groundbreaking Texas pro-life program

HOUSTON—A Texas pro-life group pioneering a state partnership to provide family planning services for the poor acknowledged last week it would serve about 80 percent fewer clients than expected during the program’s first year.

Pro-abortion groups gloated over the news, but the organization’s founder insists the temporary setback does not spell doom for the effort.

“I still believe this is an important program for women,” Carol Everett told me. “The path forward is to continue serving women and men with quality healthcare across the state.”

The Heidi Group, started by Everett to operate crisis pregnancy centers, won a contract for about $5 million under the Texas Family Planning Program. State lawmakers established the program in 2016 after they revoked funding for community health providers that also offer abortions, including Planned Parenthood. Providers offer pregnancy tests, contraceptives, tests for sexually transmitted diseases, and screenings for cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. The Heidi Group planned to serve 17,895 women in its first year. The real number will be closer to 3,500, prompting state officials to re-allocate about $4 million of The Heidi Group’s grant funds to other providers.

Everett blamed her group’s disappointing numbers on a delay in getting the grant money, which arrived in January instead of September 2016, and the steep learning curve involved with starting a new program. Pro-life leaders across the country had high hopes for the Texas program, which aimed to prove low-income men and women—and state officials—didn’t need to rely on the nation’s largest abortion provider for family planning healthcare.

The Heidi Group is coordinating services through a network of private medical clinics. It took longer than Everett expected for the clinics to establish processes for screening patients for eligibility and requesting reimbursements. Pro-abortion groups, which decried Everett’s participation in the program from the beginning, pointed to her early problems as proof a pro-life group with no prior medical experience could not outdo Planned Parenthood.

“That infuriates me,” state Rep. Sarah Davis, a pro-abortion Republican lawmaker from the Houston area, told Politico. “It is going to be very difficult to create that safety net of providers without Planned Parenthood.”

But Everett insists the program will work. For the next funding year, which begins Sept. 1, her organization has purchased two mobile clinics. And the physicians participating in the program are better prepared to identify patients who qualify. She noted any new enterprise takes longer than a year to ramp up to its full potential.

As for replicating the program elsewhere, Everett encouraged other pro-life leaders to “start now and start early” getting doctors and their staff ready before any grant money comes in.

“Be educated about how to assess eligibility,” she said. “If they learn how to do that, they all have people walking through the doors that qualify for this. Train them early, train them often, train them long.”

Lawmakers target unauthorized DNRs

Texas doctors must now receive consent from patients or their surrogates before issuing a “do-not-resuscitate” order (DNR) in an emergency situation, thanks to a new law signed by Gov. Greg Abbott.

Earlier this year, Kansas passed a similar DNR law requiring doctors to tell parents of disabled children if they have issued such an order. Parents can veto the order if they wish. The law, dubbed “Simon’s Law” after the high-profile case of Simon Crosier, came about after parents—too late—discovered DNRs issued by doctors against their wishes.

While some parents have worked for legislation to block DNR orders, parents of one late Alabama teen fought to maintain one they issued themselves. The teen, Alex Hoover, struggled with autism and a serious heart condition since birth. His parents told school officials about the order, but administrators said they couldn’t comply. If his heart stopped beating, they would try to save him, so Alex’s parents pulled him out of school. Alex died recently with friends and family by his side. —Samantha Gobba

Chile legalizes abortion

Women in Chile can now obtain abortions if their lives are in danger, they have been raped, or their unborn babies have disabilities. The country’s high court last week finalized a law passed earlier this summer, which pro-life lawmakers challenged.

In a 6-4 vote Monday, the Constitutional Court struck down the challenge by the conservative coalition Chile Vamos, or “Chile, Let’s go.”

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet called last week’s decision a “historic day for the women of Chile,” but the Chilean Conference of Bishops said it was “incomprehensible” and warned the law would lead to unfettered abortion availability in the country. —S.G.

South Carolina bans abortion funding

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster banned state funding for abortionists or abortion centers in an executive order Thursday, saying, “Taxpayer dollars must not directly or indirectly subsidize abortion providers like Planned Parenthood.”

Planned Parenthood South Atlantic president Jenny Black said in a statement that the move was “politically motivated” and insisted her organization “will not stop fighting to protect our patients’ access to healthcare.”

The order comes soon after a federal court upheld Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s order to redirect Medicaid funds away from Planned Parenthood. Three Planned Parenthood clients challenged the order in court. —S.G.

Protecting babies with Down syndrome

Ohio lawmakers are considering a bill that would make it a fourth-degree felony to abort a baby diagnosed with Down syndrome. Abortionists found guilty of breaking the law could lose their license or face a lawsuit.

In Europe, a pro-life group in Poland is pressuring lawmakers to ban abortion on unborn babies with Down syndrome. The Life and Family Foundation seeks to start a petition for legislation that would prohibit the practice.

Poland allows abortion in cases of rape, incest, danger to the mother’s life, or fetal abnormalities. An effort to ban abortion entirely gained initial momentum but ultimately failed last year after women dressed in black protested in Poland’s city streets. —S.G.