THE WEEKLY REVEAL
Saturday, March 25, 2023
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Hello! In this issue:
- Florida is the latest state with a Republican supermajority in the Legislature to propose more taxpayer funding for anti-abortion pregnancy centers.
- Indian boarding school survivors and their descendants want justice.
- Our investigation into suspected war criminals wins an Overseas Press Club award.
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NEW
Florida Legislators Want to Vastly Expand State Funds for Anti-Abortion Pregnancy Centers
By Laura C. Morel and Clara-Sophia Daly, Miami Herald
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The Pregnancy Help Medical Clinics location in Hialeah, Fla. The crisis pregnancy center dissuades people from considering abortions. Credit: Clara-Sophia Daly/Miami Herald
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Florida Republican lawmakers are proposing $25 million in taxpayer funding for anti-abortion pregnancy centers. That’s more than a fivefold increase over last year’s funding of $4.45 million. The proposal is tucked at the bottom of a new bill that would ban abortions past six weeks of pregnancy, dramatically reducing access from the 15-week limit signed into law last year.
The legislation is part of a national anti-abortion campaign spearheaded by Republican-dominated state legislatures. The goal is to expand the reach of pregnancy centers following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last summer to overturn Roe v. Wade.
While the bill would inject millions into the centers’ cause, it does nothing to increase oversight of the pregnancy center industry in Florida. A Reveal investigation found that most of the 2,500 centers in the United States operate in a kind of regulatory dead zone, free of significant state and federal oversight. Most states, including Florida, don’t require pregnancy centers that provide medical services to be licensed or inspected.
If the bill passes, which is likely, the law also would effectively end Florida’s status as one of the last remaining abortion-access states in the South.
“The idea that they’re adding $25 million on top of a nearly all-out abortion ban is beyond the pale,” said Amy Weintraub, reproductive rights program director for the progressive nonprofit Progress Florida. “It is like they are looking to punish Floridians who want to have full bodily autonomy and want to have control over their own pregnancy decisions in every way possible.”
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DIG DEEPER
📝 Abortion’s Last Stand in the South: A Post-Roe Future Is Already Happening in Florida. Read.
📝 How Anti-Abortion Pregnancy Centers Can Claim to Be Medical Clinics and Get Away With It. Read.
📝 This Nurse Wanted to Help Women Avoid Abortions. Then She Saw Infection Control Problems at a Crisis Pregnancy Center. Read.
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THIS WEEK’S PODCAST
Buried Secrets: America’s Indian Boarding Schools, Part 2
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This week on Reveal, we bring you the second half of our two-part collaboration with ICT (formerly Indian Country Today) about boarding schools for Native children and the United States’ effort to come to terms with an educational system designed to “kill the Indian and save the man.”
In part two, members of the Pine Ridge community in South Dakota put pressure on the Catholic Church to share information about the boarding school it ran on the reservation.
ICT reporter Mary Annette Pember visits Red Cloud Indian School, which has launched a truth and healing initiative for former students and their descendants. A youth-led activist group has created a list of demands that includes financial reparations and the return of tribal land. The group also wants the Catholic Church to open up its records about the school’s past, especially information about children who may have died there.
But when Pember travels to the archives of the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, which administered boarding schools like Red Cloud, she discovers that many records are redacted or off-limits entirely.
Can truth and healing come without accountability?
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🎧 Other places to listen: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.
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RELATED
Buried Secrets: America’s Indian Boarding Schools, Part 1. Listen.
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🏆 My Neighbor the Suspected War Criminal, a show we produced with PRX, has received the Overseas Press Club of America’s Lowell Thomas Award for best radio, audio or podcast coverage of international affairs. The investigation explored why powerful people suspected of committing war crimes often walk free.
The judges noted: “Among the highlights was an interview with federal officials who were asked whether the government had ever charged anyone with a war crime. Their stumbling response is a great example of journalists holding public officials to account.”
Congrats to the team, including Ike Sriskandarajah, Neroli Price, Brett Myers and Andy Donohue!
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This issue of The Weekly Reveal was written by Kassie Navarro, edited by Kate Howard and copy edited by Nikki Frick. If you enjoyed this issue, forward it to a friend. Have some thoughts? Drop us a line with feedback or ideas!
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