By Jennifer Carr Allmon, Associate Director, Texas Catholic Conference

As the last few hours of the 82^nd regular session drew to a close, my twitter feed was on fire with proclamations that the legislature had passed the most pro-life budget in the history of the state. I refrained from commenting, but was perplexed at how this could be an accurate description. For Catholics, being pro-life means respecting human life and dignity from conception to natural death—The Church also teaches that a budget is a moral document that reflects our priorities. So does this moral document reflect a consistent respect for life-from womb to tomb, and everything in between?

There are some strong successes in this budget to protect unborn life and encourage mothers to choose life for their unborn children. Funding for abortion alternative providers – critical programs that provide practical support for mothers to choose life -- increased from $8 million to $8.3 million in the upcoming biennium, the state’s two-year budget cycle. At the other end of the life spectrum, we were successful in preventing a 33% cut to nursing home care that was originally proposed. On the dignity front, funding for poor and homeless programs and the children’s summer nutrition program was increased slightly from the previous budget year. The Texas Cord Blood Bank, which stores donated adult stem cells from umbilical cord blood, was funded through a last minute correction in the conference committee. This program literally saves lives by curing over 80 different illnesses, including some types of cancer and inherited illnesses. These are promising outcomes, but they do not tell the whole story.

Overall the Legislature adopted a budget that cut total spending by $15.2 billion, with $11 billion of that reduction coming from the health and human services article of the budget. The CHIP Perinatal program received a 36% cut. This program helps mothers choose life by providing them with the medical support that they need to ensure the health of their unborn child.  Also, there is a rider in the budget that reauthorizes the Women’s Health program without preventing abortion providers and their affiliates from receiving state funding for family planning dollars. There is a chance that this will be corrected in the special session of the legislature this summer.

There is no funding explicitly for homelessness prevention allocated to the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs. There was also a decrease of $10 million in prison diversion funding, and public education was underfunded by $4 billion, including the elimination of full day pre-kindergarten. Access to quality education is a matter of justice for children to reach their fullest potential and, in some cases, break free from the cycle of poverty. A contentious special session of the legislature is taking place at the time of this writing to attempt to rectify school funding issues.

While some of these programs may boil down to decisions of prudential judgment over funding streams, on the whole, the state legislature failed to craft a moral document that protects life and dignity from conception to natural death. They chose to make these cuts while keeping billions of dollars in the state’s Rainy Day Fund. The result is not a document we can be proud of or call “pro-life.” We pray that the legislature will do better next time and will advocate ceaselessly for the protection of life at all stages.