Anti-Choice Group to Receive $1.6 Million Health Grant
More taxpayer dollars for Carol Everett’s the Heidi Group

During a hearing earlier this month that weighed the state health department’s proposed rule to bury or cremate fetal tissue (also known as: conservative politicians’ latest attack on abortion access), Carol Everett worried aloud of the threat of contracting STDs and HIV from an infected woman’s fetal remains through the sewer system.

“What if one day something horrible escaped into the sewer system?” she asked, eliciting laughter from pro-choice advocates in the room (see “Fetal Burial Saga Continues,” Aug. 5). Everett reiterated her deeply unscientific and unfounded concern on an Austin Fox news affiliate.

Just days later, the state awarded Everett and her anti-choice organization, the Heidi Group, with some $1.65 million in public funding for health care services, as first reported by the Texas Observer. With money flowing to more than two dozen credible institutions like the Baylor College of Medicine and the Harris County Hospital District, Heidi Group - a Round Rock-based Christian nonprofit that advocates against abortion - stands to gain the second most sizable annual contract. (So far, no funding this cycle will reach the hands of an Austin health provider.)

The Heidi Group provides NO women’s health care services.