A critical lifeline for abortion access is fraying ― and few people appear to be paying attention.
Several leaders of abortion funds around the country convened a call with reporters this monthto relay a stark warning ahead of the two-year anniversary of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Supreme Court decision that repealed federal abortion protections.
“I’m generally not someone to catastrophize the situation, but the reality is that we’ve come together today in crisis,” Oriaku Njoku, executive director of the National Network of Abortion Funds, said on the call. “Abortion funds are finding ways to make reproductive justice a reality in spite of us being in a state of emergency.”
Abortion funds help pay for costs associated with abortion, including money for the procedure or abortion pills. Many funds also help with practical expenses such as gas, flights, accommodation and often child care. In 2023, funds in the NNAF network provided $36 million in funding for abortions and over $10 million in travel and logistical support. Every dollar these funds take in is spent on abortion patients, save for the few funds that are staffed.
Abortion funds initially saw a historic increase in donations after the fall of Roe v. Wade in June 2022. But since then, donations have dwindled, forcing funds to face the grim reality that they may have to cut staff or close their doors entirely.
“I’m afraid that there is this level of complacency that has happened post-Dobbs,” Njoku said. “This is not the same movement that it was five years ago, let alone 50 years ago, and yet we’re still operating and funding as if it were the same issue as it was before.”
Donations spurred from rage over Dobbs are drying up even as the need for more support increases, with more states enacting abortion bans. The Abortion Fund of Ohio supported about 100 patients a month in 2022. By 2023, that grew to 360 patients a month, and now they’re averaging more than 500 patient requests every month ― a 400% increase in two years, as executive director Lexis Dotson-Dufault told reporters earlier this month.
In Florida, abortion funds are feeling the impact of a recently enacted six-week abortion ban that’s forced the majority of patients out of state. At least 50% of Florida Access Network’s callers have had to leave the state, Stephanie Loraine Piñeiro, executive director of the abortion fund, told reporters in the same call.
Since the state’s six-week ban went into effect, the average driving time to an abortion clinic skyrocketed from 22 minutes to over nine hours in one direction. The cost of traveling averages between $1,000 and $1,500 ― three times what Floridians previously paid when they could access care in-state.
“Abortion funds are day-in and day-out breaking down the socioeconomic barriers that prevent people from accessing abortion care,” Dotson-Dufault said. “When abortion funds run out of money, the reality is people go without the abortion care they want, need and deserve.”
Although there are grants and big-money donors who support abortion funds, they are mostly the exceptions. Funds heavily rely on individual, small-dollar donors from their communities, who often can’t make continued contributions. And despite small upticks in donations when abortion is in the news, the money coming in is not nearly enough to cover the amount that needs to go out.
Between the unsustainable infrastructure that relies on dwindling donations and the growing number of abortion bans, funds have been forced to make impossible decisions. The National Abortion Federation, along with Planned Parenthood’s national Justice Fund, recently announced that starting July 1, the organizations will only be able to subsidize 30% of costs for abortion seekers ― a decrease from the current cap of 50%. This means that if someone seeking an abortion needs $2,000 to cover the cost of travel, lodging and the procedure itself, funds can only cover up to 30%, or $600, versus 50%, or $1,000.
“Since January, we have seen a substantial increase in the number of patients who need funding compared to 2023 and a significant increase in the amount of assistance they need,” NAF leadership wrote in an email earlier this month to funds across the country. “Unfortunately, we cannot continue at the current co-pay and exception rates for the rest of the year.”
“As we have had to do in the past, we will once again need to adjust our co-pay rates for patients being subsidized by the Justice Fund in order to help as many patients as we can with our funding and ensure we can provide support throughout the end of the year,” the NAF’s email read.
Alisha Dingus, the development director at DC Abortion Fund, said the group’s budget has been halved because of a decrease in donations. In the last year, DCAF raised $1.7 million and spent nearly 90% of that on abortion patients. Some of the decrease, she believes, is from issue fatigue and donations being spread across several issues in addition to reproductive rights. But Dingus suspects stigma is also a factor.
“There is still this internal barrier to wanting to fund abortions directly,” she said. “Some people will do it in different ways: They’ll give money to a practical support network… or they’ll give money to Planned Parenthood, but they won’t give money to something that they know explicitly goes to funding abortion. And I think we still have a ton of work to do there, unfortunately.”
Even though DCAF is one of the largest abortion funds in the country, Dingus still worries about the future.
“Abortion funds are incredible. We work so collaboratively, without ego, to give people abortion care,” she said. “We shouldn’t be in a constant state of crisis and panic because we’re here to support people who are already scrambling. But here we are, fighting for resources and asking questions like: ‘Will we have jobs in the future? Will we exist?’”
