Ad Campaign Demands Secretive Anti-Abortion Network Come Clean
10.19.20 – Today, the Real Waste campaign by Equity Forward launched a billboard and digital ad campaign in Pennsylvania to demand that Real Alternatives, a secretive state anti-abortion network, become more transparent with its finances.
The billboard, along with ads in the Philadelphia Inquirer and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, as well as on social media, are part of a three-year effort by Equity Forward to get clear information from Real Alternatives.
“The money that Real Alternatives puts in its pockets doesn’t add up,” said Mary Alice Carter, Senior Advisor of Equity Forward. “This is a program that claims to help people struggling to get by, yet they pay their executives over $700,000 a year and refuse to be forthcoming with where the rest of the money goes. What are they hiding?”
Real Alternatives implements the state-funded “Alternatives to Abortion Program.” The Pennsylvania Department of Human Services has allocated millions of dollars to Real Alternatives to perform the government function of distributing grants to anti-abortion centers around the state. The budget pays for operations and salaries, which for just three people is more than $700k a year and gives Real Alternatives the authority to recruit anti-abortion centers to the program.
Anti-abortion centers are known for deceptive practices, such as presenting themselves to look like health clinics that provide abortion services, as well as giving false and misleading information about birth control and abortion.
“After being investigated and sued multiple times, it is past time for Real Alternatives to come clean,” said Carter. “For three years, we have been asking them to be transparent about what they have done with the money meant for families in need, and for three years, they have ducked responsibility.”
Real Alternatives was founded in Pennsylvania and started opening operations in other states. An investigation by the PA state Auditor General uncovered that Real Alternatives siphoned a significant amount of the money meant to help families in Pennsylvania, instead to fund operations in Indiana and Michigan. It still runs a program in Indiana. In 2019, Michigan defunded Real Alternatives after the state found it was not fulfilling its contract.
For more information on the Real Waste campaign, visit www.realwaste.org.
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Equity Forward is a watchdog project that seeks to ensure transparency and accountability among anti-reproductive health groups and individuals who are actively working to deny people access to services such as birth control and abortion. We are a staff of researchers, lawyers and communications professionals that uses research to inform reports and campaigns to effectively reduce or eliminate the damaging work of anti-reproductive health forces.