Positive Alternatives: Life-affirming help

The Positive Alternatives Act (2005), which MCCL proposed to lawmakers, created a new grant program within the Minnesota Department of Health for life-affirming organizations offering support to pregnant women. $2.5 million is available annually through a competitive grant application process. The first Positive Alternatives grants were awarded in July 2006 to more than 30 organizations across the state.

The grants are available to life-affirming organizations that provide direct care to pregnant women and their unborn children through counseling and supportive services. Organizations are also expected to provide continuing assistance after the child is born.

Essential services

Participating programs and organizations receive money to provide, either by direct care or referral, information and services to women in the following areas:

• Medical attention for the woman and the unborn child
• Nutritional services
• Housing assistance 
• Adoption services 
• Education and employment assistance
• Child care assistance, and
• Parenting education and support services.

At a minimum, each program covers all of the above areas while encouraging a woman to bring her child to term.

Agency eligibility

To be eligible for a grant, an agency or organization must:

• Be a private, nonprofit organization
• Demonstrate that the program is conducted under appropriate supervision
• Not charge the woman for services provided under the program
• Provide each counseled, pregnant woman with accurate information on the developmental characteristics of unborn children and babies
• Assure that the program’s purpose is to assist and encourage women to carry their children to term and to maximize their potential thereafter
• Assure that none of the funds provided are used to encourage or counsel a woman to have an abortion not necessary to prevent her death, to provide her an abortion, or to directly refer her for an abortion and;
• Have had an "alternatives to abortion program" in existence for at least one year as of July 1, 2005.

Thousands helped

Since the bill’s signing in 2005, thousands of women and families have received help and assistance through the Positive Alternatives program. Read some of their stories to learn how this vital program is meeting the needs of women.

More information about the Positive Alternatives grant program, including grant applications, can be found at the Minnesota Department of Health.