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- An anti-abortion couple promised pregnant women thousands of dollars if they didn't have abortions.
- The women had their babies, but the couple didn't always hold up their end of the deal.
- BI investigated, and now Let Them Live says it will pay out nearly $10,000 the women never got.
An anti-abortion group says it will pay three women $9,460 after a Business Insider investigation found it failed to give them the payments it promised in exchange for them agreeing not to have abortions.
Let Them Live, an Indiana-based nonprofit, promised the three women thousands of dollars of support in contracts that a lawyer described as "abusive."
The group offers women financial assistance if they are considering having an abortion for economic reasons — as long as they sign a contract vowing not to terminate their pregnancy.
BI spoke with a total of four women who were promised thousands of dollars by Let Them Live, and went on to carry their babies to term.
They said it failed to deliver $30,660 of support it promised them for childcare, food, rent, and utilities, leaving one considering suicide and another having to "ask on Facebook" for diapers.
All the women said they were at least five months pregnant when they were told the support would be cut, meaning their options for abortion were narrowing. "I feel conned into keeping this baby," one told BI.
Let Them Live says it has "helped" more than 700 women cancel their abortions since it was founded in 2019.
Its founders are a millennial anti-abortion Christian couple who have deep connections to the conservative movement.
Nathan Berning, Let Them Live's CEO and cofounder, acknowledged multiple mistakes on the group's part and told BI it was looking into the cases of women not getting what they were pledged.
He said the group is auditing its finances. "We have a better process to ensure that something like that doesn't happen again," he said.
He said the group considers a woman's case a success if an abortion is avoided. "All these moms that you're bringing to our attention, they all have babies that they are holding in their arms now because of us," he said.
Philip Hackney, an expert in nonprofit law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, said Let Them Live's contracts were "abusive" because the women were obligated to conditions including giving up "significant" health privacy rights.
Berning said Let Them Live shared women's ultrasounds and stories to help it raise funds but anonymizes details as much as it can.
Read BI's full investigation here