Abortion funds raise millions in donations to help people seeking the procedure.
Abortion funds, the local organizations that provide financial and logistical support for people seeking abortions, have received millions of dollars in new funding after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade on Friday.
As of Friday afternoon, the National Network of Abortion Funds, which has 97 member organizations, had received more than $3 million from about 33,000 new donations — more than 4,500 of which were recurring — since the Supreme Court’s decision became public this morning, said Debasri Ghosh, the fund’s managing director. In May, when a draft of the Supreme Court’s opinion on Roe v. Wade leaked, the fund received about $1.5 million in donations over a week.
“It’s an incredible outpouring of support,” Ms. Ghosh said.
The fund had not actively sought these donations, Ms. Ghosh said, because its website temporarily crashed Friday morning due to “an unprecedented, massive spike in traffic that we just couldn’t prepare for.” She said the donations were “entirely organic.”
Founded in 1993, the fund will split the donations among its member organizations. In states where abortion remains legal, the donations will fund the procedure, medication and costs such as travel, lodging and child care. But it is less clear how the money will be used in states where abortion has become illegal.
Some abortion funds are anticipating an increase in people seeking abortions from out-of-state.
“The numbers may increase, but our strategies and the network that we’ve built won’t,” said Liz Goodfellow, the vice president of the Jane Fund of Central Massachusetts, a member organization of the national network.
Other abortion funds have paused activity for fear of legal consequences.
“We’re mostly just waiting to get with our lawyer and see what our options are,” said Sam Robertson, a board member of the Roe Fund, an abortion fund based in Tulsa, Okla. “But at this point, we’re essentially in a freeze.”
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