Last Friday, I commented on Meteor Blades’ post: If Mississippi closes state’s only abortion clinic, it won’t stop abortions, just safe, legal ones and referenced the Abortion Rights Funds. Two readers asked for more information on the funds, so here it is.
What is an Abortion Rights Fund?
Abortion Rights Funds provide direct financial assistance to women and girls seeking abortions who cannot afford them. There are over 100 local, grassroots funds in 41 states loosely woven together by the National Network of Abortion Funds. While 80% percent of the funds are built and function with all volunteer labor, these funds collectively and consistently help more than 20,000 women and girls each year. The need is much greater than the resources which we in the funds have been able to raise. Our funds collectively meet about 20% of the need nationally.
The funds are also building a movement. We are working to raise public awareness of the hardships and injustice imposed on women by the legal and economic restrictions placed on abortion. Working at local, state, and federal levels, the funds and the National Network are trying to restore public funding.
Please follow me over the stile to find out why the funds exist, why this work is critical, and how you as a progressive in this country can help.
The Abortion Rights Funds are the only organizations in the country providing direct funding for abortions. Those of us working in this movement all believe that – The right to an abortion is meaningless without the ability to pay.
Yes, abortion is now legal in the United States and has been since the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade. With the passage of the Hyde Amendment in 1976 - however, Congress cut off all federal funding for abortions, and all but a handful of states followed. States that denied Medicaid abortions created a dual standard where the "right to choose" exists only for those with the money to exercise that right. In such states, approximately one in three poor women are forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term for lack of funding. In the process, they often abandon their dreams of completing an education, escaping from violence, or climbing out of poverty. And, since the recession hit, the number of women forced to continue unwanted pregnancies for the lack of funding has grown. Calls to help lines have quadrupled since 2008/2009.
In 17 states, Medicaid will pay for abortion care for poor women, but even in these states there are problems getting women enrolled in time. Medicaid does not cover the working poor or the homeless. Women with federal insurance – soldiers and their families, Native Americans, women in federal prisons, and federal employees; all these women need our help. Women working for religiously-affiliated organizations cannot use their health insurance to pay for abortions. Even when health insurance does cover abortion care, women in abusive relationships or dangerous family situations may not be able to use their insurance safely. Young women on their parents’ health plans are, yet, another common example. These are some of the women and girls helped in those states with coverage.
There are currently three major areas being addressed by this movement:
1. advocacy to maintain and expand women's right to abortion
2. provision of direct services
3. funding
As one of our members has said: Working with the fund is a daily reminder that, although it is 37 years after Roe v. Wade, so many low-income women could not get the abortions they need without our help. I am sad that we have to exist, and proud that we do.
Why should you help with this work?
Katha Pollit, in the April issue of The Nation, lays out 6 reasons why giving to NNAF directly or to a local abortion rights fund is such a powerful act:
1. With a very small investment, you can change a woman's life forever
2. Your donation helps women in crisis directly and immediately
3. You could be paying forward the safe, legal abortion care that the people in your life—or maybe even yourself—have needed in the past
4. You are literally making choice a reality for someone
5. You are investing in the new young leaders of tomorrow—the activists and volunteers who answer the hotlines, form bowling teams for abortion access, and raise their voices for abortion access
6. You will feel good. With reason!
This diary is actually a call – to all you progressives out there – for help. Many of our funds are being run by old codgers like me. We need you to donate your time and/or your money. If you go to the National Network of Abortion Funds, you can find your local fund and help. Or, you can start a fund yourself. This is a truly grassroots effort and you could be a leader.