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Religion In The Examining Room: Crisis Pregnancy Centers In NC

Volunteers in blue vests escort women into a clinic in the face of protestors.
Lindsay Beyerstein & Martyna Starosta / ReWire.News
Lindsay Beyerstein's documentary 'Care in Chaos' captured protesters outisde of an abortion clinic and clinic escorts walking with patients.

In their budget, Republican state lawmakers proposed $2.6 million in funding for crisis pregnancy centers and anti-abortion organizations. This funding would quadruple the amount given to one particular nonprofit, despite a report from the state Department of Health and Human Services that does not recommend expanding the program.

Crisis pregnancy centers may offer pregnancy tests, counseling and assistance in signing up for Medicaid. Their stated aim is to assist women experiencing an unexpected pregnancy. They offer some free services and others that require attending specific religious events. Host Frank Stasio talks about crisis pregnancy centers in North Carolina and around the country with Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan, a reporter at the News & Observer who has followed the funding; journalist and documentary filmmaker Lindsay Beyerstein who recently completed a project on CPCs; and Kimberly Kelly, an associate professor of sociology and director of the gender studies department at Mississippi State University. 

Josie Taris left her home in Fayetteville in 2014 to study journalism at Northwestern University. There, she took a class called Journalism of Empathy and found her passion in audio storytelling. She hopes every story she produces challenges the audience's preconceptions of the world. After spending the summer of 2018 working in communications for a Chicago nonprofit, she decided to come home to work for the station she grew up listening to. When she's not working, Josie is likely rooting for the Chicago Cubs or petting every dog she passes on the street.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
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