FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 7, 2026

CONTACT: Emily Witt (she/her), [email protected]

TEXAS – A new report released by The Baker Institute Center for Health Policy at Rice University, in partnership with Resound Research, highlights key findings on the taxpayer-funded Texas Thriving Families, formally known as Alternatives to Abortion, a state program that aims primarily to “promote healthy pregnancy and childbirth” and “promote childbirth as an alternative to abortion,” among other goals.

According to the report, Texas’ record-high investment in the Texas Thriving Families program currently funds services with little oversight or demonstrated efficacy — despite hundreds of millions in funding.

In two decades since the program’s start, over $400 million in taxpayer funds have been allocated to the program as lawmakers have increased its budget each legislative session. Texas lawmakers have also passed four abortion bans in that time.

Key Findings

• Over 50% of TTF’s funds are distributed to unregulated anti-abortion centers that are not HIPAA-compliant, do not provide medically accurate information, and employ deceptive tactics that can delay prenatal care
  
  
• The Thriving Texas Families (TTF) program is over three times larger than any other state’s at $200 million for the 2026-27 biennium ($100 million per year). Florida’s comparable program is the second-largest at $29.5 million for 2026.
  
  
• TTF exclusively provides non-medical services and does not address the most immediate needs for reproductive-age Texans: Health insurance coverage, access to prenatal care, access to contraception, sexual health education, and maternal mortality interventions
  
  
• TTF does nothing to mitigate Texas’ maternal health crisis, which disproportionately harms Black Texans, and is causing preventable pregnancy-related deaths at rising rates
  
  

Avow Texas Governing Power Director Yaneth Flores issued the following statement:

“Despite lawmakers renaming the program that funnels millions of dollars to unlicensed and unregulated anti-abortion centers to ‘Texas Thriving Families,’ the reality is that pregnant and parenting Texas families are anything but thriving. Texas ranks above the national average for maternal deaths, with Houston having the highest maternal death rate for Black mothers in the nation. Texas has the second-largest population of people who can become pregnant in the nation, and is the largest state under an abortion ban.

“These fake clinics are dangerous, and our lawmakers know it. A Texas woman almost died when an anti-abortion center misdiagnosed her ectopic pregnancy. Just last week, the Supreme Court issued a decision that could potentially block states’ ability to regulate anti-abortion centers.

“Earlier in April, the Texas Senate Committee on Health & Human Services convened to discuss ‘preventing fraud and abuse.’ The real fraud is fake clinics that steal resources while Texans are left without care. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been funnelled into this program, and all we’ve gotten is four abortion bans with rising maternal and infant mortality rates. Texans deserve policies with reproductive justice at the center, not investments in coercion and criminalization.” 

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