Public college and high school health clinics would have to share information with pregnant students about where they can find adoption services or pregnancy care under a new bill that critics say could direct young women to unlicensed medical providers.
The legislation, House Bill 478 proposed by Rep. Dodie Horton, R-Houghton, requires waiting rooms in school health clinics to carry pamphlets and display signs pointing patients to the pregnancy page on the state’s Department of Health website. The website provides information about the risks of pregnancy and resources for pregnant women, as well as the number of an “abortion alternatives hotline.” It also refers to “the unborn child,” a term .
The pamphlets would also include a list of public and private agencies that offer pregnancy care, adoption services and care for newborns.
Those in favor of the proposal, also known as the Signs of Hope Act, say it would be beneficial to young expectant mothers, especially those who don’t have strong support systems. But opponents say the bill does not require that the listed agencies be licensed health care professionals, raising concerns that students will be directed to unlicensed providers.
Lawmakers on the House education committee voted 11-0 Tuesday to advance the bill.
Horton, a conservative lawmaker whose previous bills and the U.S. motto “In God We Trust,” told the committee Tuesday that her aim is to let pregnant students know their options. She pointed out that before Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, triggering a statewide ban on abortions at all stages of pregnancy, Louisiana abortion clinics were required by law to hand out similar pamphlets.
“Praise God, we don’t have those anymore,” Horton said, referring to the clinics. She said she wanted to create similar pamphlets that students can take home with them from school health centers.
Rebecca Bolen, a proponent of the bill, told the committee that having outside support and access to resources when she discovered she was pregnant her senior year of high school in St. Tammany Parish allowed her to continue her education.
She pointed to data that show pregnancy is one of the leading reasons teenage girls and young women fail to finish their education.
“These statistics represent real lives and lost opportunities, and I was almost one of them,” Bolen said. Girls “deserve to know that their dreams don’t have to end with pregnancy.”
However, critics who spoke against Horton’s bill expressed concern that the required pamphlets could steer young people to clinics that are not medically licensed, including to so-called “crisis pregnancy centers.” Those are faith-based nonprofits that critics say employ manipulative tactics to convince women to keep their pregnancies.
Michelle Erenberg, executive director of Lift Louisiana, a nonprofit reproductive rights organization, said the bill “opens the door” to promotional material for crisis pregnancy centers.
“Public educational institutions have a constitutional obligation to remain neutral in matters of deeply personal and political significance,” said Erenberg, who signed up to speak on her own behalf not her organization’s. “Requiring schools to promote the viewpoints of nonmedical, religiously motivated organizations threatens this neutrality and exposes institutions to potential legal challenges.”
Several medical associations say the centers are not held to the same safety standards as other medical facilities, warning that they sometimes use untested procedures, such as abortion pill “reversals,” for which there is little scientific evidence of their safety and efficacy.
In a , researchers who examined the websites of 348 crisis pregnancy centers nationwide found that 80% provided “at least one false or misleading piece of information” regarding pregnancy, including some that falsely linked abortion to adverse mental health impacts, breast cancer and future infertility. Many also failed to provide transparent information about staffers’ medical training.
Horton declined to comment on the criticisms and redirected questions to the state’s Department of Health, which will be charged with printing and distributing the signs and pamphlets. The Department of Health did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Rep. Barbara Freiberg, R-Baton Rouge, expressed concern that medical providers may interpret the bill’s wording as a requirement that they hand each patient a booklet, rather than simply offer the information to those who want it.
She successfully petitioned to add an amendment removing a line from the bill stating that health care staff “shall offer a booklet to each pregnant patient.” The committee approved the amended bill.
The legislation’s fiscal note projects it would cost taxpayers just over $270,000 during the 2025-26 fiscal year and $128,000 each year after, though Horton told the committee those are estimates and that she expects the actual cost will be lower once the state determines how many pamphlets need to be printed.
An outspoken abortion opponent, Horton voted last year against a bill that would have allowed minors who are victims of incest or rape to terminate their pregnancies.
She also expressed support last year for a bill imposing harsher penalties on those who provide abortion pills to a pregnant person without the individual’s knowledge or consent, and she co-authored another bill designating June as “Sanctity of Preborn Life Month.”