How a Texas program funnels millions to anti-abortion groups with little accountability

Year after year, while Roe v. Wade was the law of the land, Texas legislators passed measures limiting access to abortion—who could have one, how, and where. And with the same cadence, they added millions of dollars to a program designed to discourage people from terminating pregnancies.

Their budget infusions for the Alternatives to Abortion program grew with almost every legislative session—first gradually, then dramatically—from $5 million starting in 2005 to $140 million after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the right to an abortion.

Now that abortion is largely illegal in Texas, lawmakers say they have shifted the purpose of the program, and its millions of dollars, to supporting families affected by the state’s ban.

In the words of Rep. Jeff Leach, a Republican from Plano, the goal is to “provide the full support and resources of the state government … to come alongside of these thousands of women and their families who might find themselves with unexpected, unplanned pregnancies.”

But an investigation by ProPublica and CBS News found that the system that funnels a growing pot of state money to anti-abortion nonprofits has few safeguards and is riddled with waste.