The Donald Trump administration announced Friday it will award a $5.1 million grant to the Obria Group – a nonprofit network of health centers that provides life-affirming comprehensive healthcare.
According to a press release, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is awarding the grant over the course of three years through the Title X Family Planning program. Obria plans to expand its services to low-income individuals and families in four California counties.
“With this grant, the administration has opened up a new avenue of health care choices for low income and underserved women and their families in California,” Obria Group Founder and CEO Kathleen Eaton Bravo said in a statement. “Many women want the opportunity to visit a professional, comprehensive health care facility – not an abortion clinic – for their health care needs; today HHS gave women that choice.”
The grant announcement underscores the Trump administration’s determination to make a clear distinction between abortion and family planning.
In February, HHS released a new rule that could block about $60 million in family planning funding to Planned Parenthood, whose “core mission,” according to its president, Dr. Leana Wen, is abortion.
The new regulation prohibits the use of Title X family planning funds to “perform, promote, refer for, or support abortion as a method of family planning.”
Wen reacted to the news of the HHS grant to the Obria Group in a tweet:
“Crisis pregnancy centers are not health centers,” she said. “If the administration gets its way, #TitleX—our nation’s dedicated program for affordable birth control & reproductive healthcare—will be dismantled, leaving millions of people without access to healthcare.”
Planned Parenthood tweeted Title X funding for its affiliates in five states has been rejected in what the abortion vendor describes as a “coordinated attack”:
“News that abortion vendors got less from the Title X family planning program than expected is a win for taxpayers,” Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, said in a statement. “Life affirming programs and medical centers deserve our support. Redirecting scarce resources to locations that care about women – born and preborn – is a win and overdue. Abortion, Planned Parenthood’s premier product, is not healthcare.”
Obria is advertising itself as “the fresh, new face of women’s care.”
“We’re transforming health care by providing compassionate, holistic, life-affirming and affordable care to men and women across the U.S.,” the nonprofit states, adding that its mission is “to partner with the best pregnancy medical clinics across the country who share a vision to offer patients a full scope of medical services.”
Currently, the healthcare group operates 21 health clinics and 11 mobile clinics in five states with 78 licensed medical professionals.
Comprehensive health services offered at Obria facilities include pregnancy testing and counseling, prenatal care through delivery, HIV/AIDS testing, pregnancy ultrasound, breast and cervical cancer testing, well-woman care and pap smears, STD testing and treatment, sexual risk avoidance education, adoption referral, and post-abortion support.
In keeping with their life-affirming mission, Obria clinics do not provide contraceptives and do not perform abortions.
Obria is reaching out to young women in ways that may be most comfortable to them, including through a new mobile app that allows users to have direct access to a healthcare professional who answers questions about pregnancy, abortion, STDs, and other sexual health topics. Through the app, users can find resources, locate a nearby facility, and schedule an appointment.
Obria’s national advisory board consists of leading pro-life advocates, including chair Berni Neal, who also serves on the boards of Thomas Aquinas College and EWTN; Focus on the Family President Jim Daly; Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser; Charlotte Lozier Institute President Chuck Donovan; Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles; Bishop Kevin Vann of Orange; CEO of Catholic University Students Curtis Martin; Live Action President Lila Rose; Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins; CEO of Center for Medical Progress David Daleiden; and COO of Economic Partners, LLC Greg Pfundstein.