At least six members of AmeriCorps, the national volunteer service nonprofit that exists under the auspices of the federal government, used their organizational positions to support women seeking abortions and, in some cases, even provide them transportation to the clinics, a government watchdog group found.
The volunteers served as "abortion doulas," or escorts to abortion clinics, in select neighborhoods in New York City, a federal inspector general's office found, the Hill first reported.
Federal grants help fund AmeriCorps, which is overseen by the Corporation for National and Community Service; federal law prohibits using these dollars in a way that supports abortion.
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The violations, which weren't explained in full detail, came from six volunteers with the National Association of Community Health Centers, a partnering organization with AmeriCorps.
"Although the Office of the Inspector General's investigation concluded the misconduct occurred on an extremely limited scope, the grantee broke the law and violated the spirit of national service," said Samantha Jo Warfield, the CNCS spokesperson, in a statement to the Hill.
The CNCS also said in a statement it was "deeply disappointed" to learn of the violations.
And NACHC chief operating officer Dave Taylor said similarly in a statement to the Hill.
"We take this matter seriously," he said, adding leaders with the organization "self-reported the issue to the proper authorities" as soon as they discovered the infractions.
He went on, the Hill reported: "We moved immediately to cease the activity in question and suspend the identified site's AmeriCorps members for a period until they and their site supervisors were retrained and revised member service contracts were reviewed and signed."
The full OIG report is due to be released online on Tuesday.
AmeriCorps touts about 80,000 volunteers around the nation. The CNCS, its managing organization, received roughly $1.1 billion in federal monies in 2015.