Number of Abandoned Babies in Texas Doubled Over the Last 10 Years

Experts point to a confluence of factors—including the state’s total abortion ban, lacking access to prenatal care and insurance coverage, and concerns about deportation.

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The outlet stressed that despite the state’s record $32.7 billion budget surplus, lawmakers have declined to invest state funding in awareness campaigns about the state’s safe haven law. This law, like others in states across the country, allows parents to relinquish unharmed newborns up to 60 days old to designated locations, typically attached to fire stations, across the country. Installing these climate-controlled boxes, which also include silent alarms to alert first responders, costs about $20,000 per box.

But state funding has largely been siphoned off to anti-abortion centers, or “crisis pregnancy centers,” across the state. Most of these centers offer no medical services—just disinformation to convince likely abortion seekers to not have the procedure. Texas allocated $165 million to CPCs this fiscal year. In July, ProPublica reported that state funding for CPCs had ballooned from $5 million in 2005 to $140 million this year and that egregious misuse of funds and even alleged fraud were rampant among these organizations.