House panel OKs grant program for anti-abortion facilities

ATLANTA (AP) A Georgia House committee on Tuesday backed the creation of a state grant program to fund ``pregnancy resource centers,'' places that would offer help to pregnant women while discouraging them from getting abortions.

Sen. Renee Unterman of Buford said she wanted to find a "positive'' response to videos released this summer by abortion opponents showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing procedures for obtaining tissue from aborted fetuses for research.

She hopes funding the centers will lower the number of abortions performed in Georgia because the centers can offer women free ultrasounds, child care supplies and other benefits. Online records from the Department of Public Health show about 27,500 abortions were performed in Georgia in 2013, the latest year available.

Abortion opponents ``have to offer an alternative,'' said Unterman, a Buford Republican.

``We're saying `We don't like abortion, but here's something that the state of Georgia is doing that is positive,''' she added.

Opponents said the bill doesn't set minimum medical standards for the centers and argued that existing facilities aren't equipped to provide the broad prenatal care pregnant women need.

Rep. Nikki Randall, D-Macon, said the state shouldn't provide funding to facilities based on their refusal to discuss legal abortion and said supporters are trying to ``whittle away'' at federal law allowing abortions.

``We'll still have abortion,'' she said. ``They just won't be safe, they won't be in a clinic. We will go back to the slaughtering days before legal abortion in this country.''

Unterman said similar grant programs are already in place in Florida, Pennsylvania and several other states. Emily Matson, executive director for the anti-abortion group Georgia Life Alliance, told the committee during Tuesday's hearing that about 70 facilities in Georgia could qualify for funding if the bill becomes law.

Unterman, who holds a seat on the Senate appropriations committee, says that chamber's version of the state budget for 2017 includes $2 million for the program.

The Senate plans to vote on its budget proposal Thursday, setting up negotiations with the House.

The Senate already has passed the pregnancy center grants. The bill now goes to the House Rules committee, which determines when bills receive a floor vote.