The Florida Senate’s health services budget maintains the $2 million in funding for the state’s network of crisis pregnancy centers.

Crisis pregnancy centers, or CPCs, are mostly religious centers aimed at dissuading women from having abortions. Some Florida centers have been found to distribute medically inaccurate information about abortion to women seeking help. Florida is among a handful of states that gives direct funding to CPCs.

According to proviso language in the state Senate’s health appropriations, the state is keeping the funding for “crisis counseling.” CPCs have not lost a dime of state funding in the past six years, while other health services have suffered deep cuts under increasingly austere budgets. For the past several years, the centers have received $2 million in taxpayer funds.

Reproductive rights advocates and democratic legislators have repeatedly denounced the state’s continued commitment to funding the centers. Yesterday, state Rep. Chuck Chestnut, D-Gainesville, introduced an amendment that would block the $2 million crisis pregnancy centers are slated to receive. The amendment, however, failed.