Texas attorney general’s office announces grants supporting adoption

Texas attorney general and gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott has put his money where his pro-life mouth is and announced grants to 13 nonprofits in Texas for the purpose of supporting adoption, the result of profits from the state’s relatively new pro-life license plates.

The attorney general’s office says, “More than $46,000 is being distributed in the initial round of grants from funds raised by sales of the Choose Life specialty license plates which were authorized by the Texas Legislature under a 2011 law.”

A supporter of life and adoption, Abbott said:

Every day across Texas, children are adopted into loving families who provide for their needs and raise them to be healthy and happy adults. The Choose Life grants will enable recipient organizations to build on the good work they are already doing and help adoption become a reality for even more children and families in the Lone Star State.

The grants, chosen by a seven-member Choose Life advisory board, will benefit several crisis pregnancy centers, as well as adoption agencies in Texas. SB 257, which allowed for the Choose Life plates, has been successful since debuting only two years ago.

Abbott’s office reports:

Of the $30 Texas drivers pay for the plate, $22 is deposited in the Choose Life account; $7.50 is deposited in the State Highway Fund for Department of Motor Vehicles administrative expenses; and $0.50 is retained by the counties. At the end of Fiscal Year 2013, Texas drivers had purchased almost 2,300 Choose Life license plates, and the balance of the Choose Life account was $52,481.61.

Pro-choicers have been vocal about their opposition to choose life license plates, but the fact is that 2,300 Texans made the choice to pay a little more for their plates so they could help women make a choice. That’s true choice. These grants are the result of those plates, and they will allow programs to continue serving women in crisis pregnancies. The grant recipients are actually those who provide choices by showing a woman with an unplanned pregnancy that there is a way besides abortion. That’s choice, and in Texas, it’s been a good one.

Grant recipients are as follows:

Aggieland Pregnancy Outreach, Inc. (Brazos County) Austin LifeCare (Travis County) Buckner Adoption and Maternity Services, Inc. (Dallas County) Community Pregnancy Center of Pasadena (Harris County) Corpus Christi Hope House, Inc. (Nueces County) Foundation for Life (Harris County) The Gladney Center for Adoption (Tarrant County) Highland Lakes Pregnancy Resource Center (Llano County) Houston Pregnancy Help Center, Inc. (Harris County) Involved for Life, Inc. (Dallas County) The John Paul II Life Center (Travis County) Pregnancy Help 4 U, Inc. (Denton County) Pregnancy Resource Center of Lake Ray Hubbard (Rockwall County)