The bill directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to publish a public website called pregnancy.gov within one year that aggregates ZIP-code–based resources for pregnant and postpartum people and parents of young children. The portal must offer a question-driven interface, distance filters (1, 5, 10, 50, 100 miles), multilingual access, user feedback, and an opt-in contact-consent mechanism for HHS outreach.
To populate the clearinghouse, HHS must invite States to recommend resources that meet criteria the Secretary sets—most notably that a resource is not a “prohibited entity” and has provided services for at least three consecutive years—and may award grants to States to build or support aggregation systems. The bill also bars any entity that performs, induces, refers for, or “counsels in favor of” abortions from appearing on the site or receiving grants, sets a $50 million authorized cap for grants for FY2026–2030 drawn from existing program lines, and requires reporting on traffic, user feedback, and resource gaps without disclosing personally identifying user data.
At a Glance
What It Does
Mandates a pregnancy.gov website run out of HHS’s Office of the Secretary that provides ZIP-code searches, distance filters, multilingual content, user feedback, and an opt-in consent route for follow-up contacts. It creates a State-facing grant program to support resource aggregation and requires HHS to develop eligibility criteria for resource listings.
Who It Affects
HHS (implementation at the Office of the Secretary), State health agencies and any State entity applying for grants to assemble local resource lists, community-based maternal and family service providers, and entities defined as ‘prohibited’ because they provide or promote abortion services.
Why It Matters
The statute centralizes federally curated local resource information for pregnant and postpartum people, ties federal funding and visibility to state-recommended, criteria-screened resources, and embeds an exclusion for abortion-related providers—shaping which services receive federal endorsement and grant support.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The Pregnancy.Gov Act creates a new Title XXXIV to the Public Health Service Act requiring HHS to build and operate a public website named pregnancy.gov. The site must be published within 12 months and run at the level of the Office of the Secretary; HHS cannot delegate administration below that office.
The portal is a ZIP-code-based clearinghouse: users answer guided questions, receive a tailored list of resources, filter results by predefined distance bands (1, 5, 10, 50, 100 miles), give feedback on usability, and may consent to allow HHS to follow up by phone or email.
For content, HHS must invite States to recommend local and online resources. The Secretary will issue criteria States must use to decide what to recommend; those criteria include a prohibition on listing certain entities and a requirement that a resource have provided services for at least three consecutive years.
To help States assemble and maintain these listings, HHS can award grants to States to build or support aggregation systems; States must apply and include outreach plans and a candidate resource list in their applications.The statute defines a ‘prohibited entity’ broadly to include any organization (and its affiliates or clinics) that performs, induces, refers for, or counsels in favor of abortions, and it denies those entities eligibility both for website listing and for grant receipt. The bill also enumerates covered resource categories—from prenatal diagnostics and perinatal hospice to adoption, childcare, financial assistance, mental-health and recovery services, and “information about abortion risks.” The Secretary must make the site accessible in languages other than English and submit a report to Congress within 180 days after launch summarizing traffic, user feedback, resource gaps, suggested improvements, and certification that no prohibited entities are listed—while omitting any personally identifying user information.On funding, the statute instructs HHS to use appropriations available to the Office of the Secretary for the website itself and allows the Secretary to use existing funds from the State Personal Responsibility Education Program and Title X to support the grant program, with an upper bound of $50 million for fiscal years 2026–2030.
The bill also contains standard rules of construction preserving future appropriations authority.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The Secretary must publish pregnancy.gov within 1 year and run it out of the Office of the Secretary (no delegation below that level).
HHS must invite States to recommend local and online resources and develop criteria that require a resource to have provided services for at least 3 consecutive years.
The statute defines and bars ‘prohibited entities’—entities that perform, induce, refer for, or counsel in favor of abortions—from being listed on the site or receiving grants.
The grant program that supports State aggregation systems may draw from State PREP and Title X funds, with a statutory cap allowing the Secretary to use up to $50 million for FY2026–2030.
The website must include ZIP-code searches, distance filters (1, 5, 10, 50, 100 miles), multilingual access, a user feedback mechanism, and an opt-in consent path for HHS outreach.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Creation and core features of pregnancy.gov
This subsection compels HHS to publish a public website named pregnancy.gov within one year and requires that implementation be handled at the Office of the Secretary. Practically, that centralizes responsibility for design, content, and operations high in HHS and imposes a tight deadline. The listed functionality—question-driven tailoring, ZIP-code-based results, pre-set distance filters, feedback collection, language access, and an opt-in consent pathway for follow-up—establishes expectations for a user-centered, geographically granular portal and signals that HHS will both provide information and optionally engage in outreach to consenting users.
State recommendations, criteria, and grant program
HHS must invite States to recommend resources and must supply objective criteria States should use to vet candidates for the clearinghouse. The bill requires a 3-year minimum service history for listed resources, which privileges established providers. It also creates a grant mechanism for States to establish or support systems that aggregate these resources; States must apply with outreach and list-of-resources plans. Operationally, this pushes significant data-collection and curation work onto State agencies or State-contracted entities and makes grant funding the lever for adoption.
Ban on listing or funding ‘prohibited entities’
This provision defines and excludes 'prohibited entities' from both listings and grants. The statute’s definition covers entities that perform, induce, refer for, or ‘counsel in favor of’ abortions and extends to affiliates and clinics. That is a substantive eligibility filter: it prevents HHS from directing users to any organization that meets the statutory predicate, which will materially shape which clinical and counseling resources appear on a federally endorsed portal.
Reporting and confidentiality requirements
HHS must report to Congress within 180 days of the website’s launch on traffic, user feedback regarding accessibility and helpfulness, identified service gaps, suggestions for improvements, and certification that no prohibited entities appear or receive grants. The report must avoid personally identifying user data, but the bill expects HHS to analyze aggregate usage and feedback for continuous improvement. The reporting obligation creates formal oversight metrics HHS will need to track from day one.
Funding sources and authorized grant amount
The bill directs the Office of the Secretary’s existing appropriations to fund the website and permits the Secretary to use funds from the State Personal Responsibility Education Program and Title X to run the State grant program, authorizing up to $50 million for FY2026–2030. The statute does not appropriate new money but reallocates program funds and sets a multi-year cap for grants, which constrains scale absent future appropriations.
Definitions shaping scope and content
This section supplies statutory definitions for key terms—‘abortion’, ‘prohibited entity’, ‘relevant resources’, ‘unborn child’, and ‘website’—and enumerates the topical categories of resources the portal should cover (e.g., prenatal diagnostics, mental-health services, adoption/foster care, alternatives to abortion, and material supports). These definitions both expand the portal’s content ambitions and create precise exclusionary rules that will be central to implementation and legal interpretation.
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Explore Healthcare in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Pregnant and postpartum people seeking local services — gain a single, ZIP-code–based portal that aggregates public, state, and private resources and offers distance filtering and language access for easier navigation.
- State health agencies or designated statewide coordinators — receive grant funding and federal imprimatur to systematize local resource lists and outreach plans, elevating their role in local care navigation.
- Community-based providers that meet the statutory criteria (non-prohibited, 3+ years of service) — obtain visibility and potential referral traffic from a federally hosted clearinghouse.
- Non-abortion clinical providers and social-service organizations (OB/GYN offices, maternity homes, mental-health providers, adoption services) — may see increased referrals and easier client navigation to their services through a centralized portal.
- Limited-English-proficiency families — the bill’s explicit multilingual requirement increases the likelihood that resources and navigation tools will be available in languages other than English.
Who Bears the Cost
- HHS (Office of the Secretary) — must design, stand up, and maintain the portal, manage state grants, verify compliance with exclusion criteria, track reporting metrics, and handle user outreach while staying within existing appropriations lines.
- State agencies — bear the administrative burden of vetting local resources to meet federal criteria, preparing grant applications, conducting outreach, and operating aggregation systems (often with limited incremental funding).
- Entities defined as ‘prohibited’ — are explicitly excluded from listings and grant eligibility, losing access to a high-visibility federal referral channel and potential public funding.
- Title X and State PREP programs — the statute allows using funds from these lines for the grant program, which may reduce resources available for existing activities or require reprogramming or trade-offs.
- Smaller or newer providers — the 3-year minimum service requirement may exclude emerging clinics or startups that cannot document three consecutive years of operations, reducing their ability to gain visibility.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central tension is between building a comprehensive, federally curated navigation tool for pregnancy-related services and enforcing a statutory exclusion that removes abortion providers and affiliated organizations from federal endorsement or funding—an approach that advances one conception of ‘‘comprehensiveness’’ while intentionally narrowing the scope of information and referrals available to users.
The bill mixes a broad service catalog with a narrow eligibility gate. Requiring a 3-year consecutive service history and barring any entity that performs, refers for, or 'counsels in favor of' abortions will systematically exclude certain clinical providers and advocacy organizations, which creates an explicitly curated—and therefore partial—information environment.
Verifying both the three-year history and the prohibited-entity predicate will demand operational procedures, documentation standards, and continuous monitoring, pushing substantial administrative work onto HHS and participating States.
The funding model raises trade-offs. The statute directs HHS to use existing Office of the Secretary appropriations for the website and permits diversion of Title X and State PREP funds to the grant program within a $50 million cap for FY2026–2030.
That combination constrains expansion unless Congress appropriates new funds and may force programmatic priorities to shift in Title X/PREP grantees’ work. The site’s opt-in outreach mechanism and collection of contact information create privacy and compliance questions: HHS will need clear policies on PII handling, consent records, data security, and coordination with HIPAA and other privacy frameworks.
Finally, including items like “abortion risks” and “alternatives to abortion,” while excluding abortion providers, risks presenting medically contested information without easily accessible countervailing clinical sources, which can produce uneven or disputed guidance for users.
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