After the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in 2022, people turn to abortion funds for help historical numbers. In the first year after the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the National Network of Abortion Funds, a nationwide network of 100 abortion funds, financially supported more than 100,000 people seeking abortion care. NNAF has disbursed over $36 million to abortion seekers and an additional $10 million in practical support funding, which includes transportation, accommodation and child care.
The decision also resulted in abortion funds receiving unprecedented amounts in donations. An influx of donations to Indigenous women rising upan abortion fund dedicated to aboriginal and indigenous people in the United States and Canada, allowed the organization to double its staff and expand employee benefits.
“We are so grateful for the people around the world who donated so soon after Dobbssaid Rachael Lorenzo, executive director of Indigenous Women Rising. “I’m proud to use these funds to invest in my staff because the work we do requires a lot of emotional labor and I want to compensate them for the hard work they do. It has such a positive impact on our organization, especially since the majority of our staff do not have college degrees.”
However, this level of donations has not been sustained since Sylvia Ghazarian, its executive director Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Plana national abortion fund, calls 2022 “rage giving.”
Ghazarian said when it comes to donations since then Dobbs, “We’re back to where we were. We’re in constant fundraising mode because one person can’t wait to have an abortion.”
At the same time, costs have only increased as state abortion bans and restrictions have made care more complicated and burdensome.
“All of us across the board have seen an increase in legal costs and security costs, which have skyrocketed,” Ghazarian said. “That’s just the reality of this crisis.”
Doing more with less
Abortion funds have been largely ignored by traditional philanthropy and thus rely heavily on individual donors, making financial planning difficult, if not impossible. Many funds operate on such thin margins that they can’t afford to hire development staff and often don’t have anyone with fundraising expertise.
“We’re not funded enough to bring in development experts,” said Lexis Dotson-Dufault, executive director of Ohio Abortion Fund, he said. “This is something that many abortion funds struggle with.”
Dotson-Dufault said about 70 percent of the organization’s funding comes from grassroots donors, and many of those supporters are “in the same demographic as the people we help fund.”
“It’s hard to rely on the same people who also need our services,” Dotson-Dufault said. “I’m really trying to get those relationships with bigger donors, talking to them about why this is important. Our funding is so fluctuating and it’s hard to change your budget every month, every week, every few days.”
Some pro-abortion funds are geared not only toward outright bans on abortion, but also toward the possibility of criminal prosecution for even helping people who seek abortions.
Adding to the cost of abortion funds helps people travel to another state for abortion care.
“We got it right away [legal] advice not to fund at all, not even to [provide] advice, which was the part that was really frustrating because all of our advice was supposed to feel like information and not advice at all,” said Jenice Fountain, executive director of Yellowhammer Fund in Alabama, where a total abortion ban went into effect on the same day as Dobbs decision.
The Yellowhammer Fund adapted by raising resources “by saying explicitly what was possible,” Fountain said. The agency also decided to create safety nets and started a statutory fund for people who might be criminalized for trying to cross state lines, which “we haven’t had to use yet, thankfully,” Fountain said.
“It’s also for people who are trying to self-manage their care, people who have had their pregnancy outcomes criminalized and people who have been affected by Child Protective Services,” Fountain added.
This ability to change tactics quickly is the great superpower of funds.
“Abortion funds are the most experienced and flexible and compassionate group of organizers in the country,” Lorenzo said. “We’ve done so much with so little, and even with the influx of donations, we’re doing our best to build infrastructure in a way that makes sure the needs of our communities are met.”
Indigenous Women Rising, like abortion funds across the country, has also expanded its mutual aid efforts, distributing items that often exceed its clients’ budgets, which include everything from supplies for babies and new parents to period hygiene products.
“It’s not just about abortion,” Lorenzo said. “We don’t live single-minded lives and we try to work with that. We still work in states where abortion is completely outlawed, and as the only Native-centered abortion fund in the country, we also have other concerns to consider, especially tribal sovereignty and political jurisdiction: Is the state where the caller is from a tribe that is federally recognized or state recognized? Where do they usually get their health care? We have to be aware of all these layers as a native organism.”
Adding to the cost of abortion funds helps people travel to another state for abortion care. in fact, Interstate travel has more than doubled in the first half of 2023, compared to the same period in 2020, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
When Florida’s six-week abortion ban went into effect on May 1, it “drained a lot of abortion funding across the state,” said Ciné Julien, a fellow at the Reproductive Justice Network at Florida Access Network, Florida’s only abortion fund. Clients who leave the state for abortion care travel hundreds of miles.
“We’re really spending our money faster because of the higher growth in travel needs and hands-on support,” Julien said. “Someone traveling out of state costs an average of about $1,200 to $1,500, and that’s three times what people would pay for in-state care.”
In 2023, the Florida Access Network distributed approximately $400,000 to support 1,500 Floridians to pay for their appointments and travel care. Instead, since the six-week ban went into effect on May 1, the Florida Access Network has funded 150 people for abortion care and is on track to disperse $100,000 by the end of this month.
Sustainable investments are essential
Navigating economic instability, clinic closings and overnight legal changes are issues that abortion funds have always faced.
“That’s the only way I knew this work—to be chaotic and ridiculous. I’ve never known a moment of stability,” said Megan Jeifo, its executive director Chicago Abortion Fund. “But that’s where we really shine: If we see a problem and something isn’t working, we’ll change it. We are not tied to some kind of process for the sake of process. We must use each moment as a catalyst to get to the next moment. We’re trying to be as nimble as possible because this moment demands it – it demands creativity and flexibility.”
That flexibility is how abortion funds can turn over quickly, especially in states like Arizona where abortion has been “consistently banned and legal,” said Eloisa Lopez, executive director of Arizona Abortion Fund, he said, referring to the Arizona Supreme Court’s ruling in April that the state’s 1864 abortion ban can be enforced. about a month later, Governor Katie Hobbs signed a bill into law to lifting the ban.
“What we did last year may or may not work for this year, and we understand that the landscape is constantly changing,” Lopez said. “Although we are based in Arizona and the majority of our patients are from Arizona or the Southwest, we also work with other funds in the Midwest, in the South.”
“Depending on what the sister funds express—maybe they’re going through a financial crunch and other funds have to lean in to help them?—there’s always change, and that’s a key element of our work: Be flexible to meet that need in the moment,” Lopez continued.
Abortion funds also have a unique perspective on the needs of abortion seekers and are constantly adapting to meet those needs as well.
“There are all kinds of barriers that a lot of people don’t expect and most people in this country don’t think about when it comes to abortion,” said Diana Parker-Kafka, executive director of the Midwest Access Coalition, an abortion provider. fund that helps people travel to, from and within the Midwest. “Getting to abortion care is a huge, huge issue. It’s often more expensive than the procedure itself.”
Traveling for several days to get an abortion means taking time off work and often counting on childcare, as 70 percent of Midwest Access Coalition’s clients are already parents of young children, according to Parker-Kafka.
In the two years since Dobbs Decision, the Midwest Access Coalition has increased practical support efforts, which includes not only providing financial assistance with all these costs, but also logistical and emotional support. It also developed a software program to distribute cash directly to their clients while they are at an abortion clinic to cover any additional expenses outside of the abortion procedure, such as food, painkillers and child care.
Significant, sustainable investment is needed to enable abortion funds to continue to provide this vital role in the abortion access ecosystem.
“If we want that access to continue under Trump, during the right-wing takeover of the courts, we have to decide as a community to continue paying for it,” Parker-Kafka said. “Whether it’s individual donations or telling your city or state to pony up and start using the huge amounts of money they have available to support body autonomy. It’s extremely expensive work, but it’s prompt service and it gets results. People who don’t want to get pregnant don’t have to be if they go to an abortion fund and get connected.”
