Multiple abortion funding groups have alleged that “gargantuan amounts” of abortion funds have been “funneled” to “vague” political efforts, “rather than supporting people who need abortions now,” according to The Nation.
Abortion funds are used to assist adult women to obtain abortions — and sometimes to even traffic teens who are traveling from states that have pro-life protections in place to states that do not.
So-called ‘out-of-touch legacy orgs’ like the National Abortion Federation (NAF) and Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) are being accused by those who oversee abortion funds of “siphon[ing] support” for women and then “funnel[ing] that money into campaign bank accounts.”
Abortion Funds Dissention Brews Among Pro-abortion Groups
States Disperse Millions in Abortion Funds
“Grassroots abortion funds had a fleeting moment in the sun. In the year after Dobbs, abortion fund budgets increased by 88%, allowing 100 funds to collectively disperse $37 million to people seeking abortions, according to National Network of Abortion Funds data,” The Fuller Project (FP) recently reported.
“One of the biggest chunks of cash comes from the $198.5 million, at least, in new state government funding allocated to supporting reproductive healthcare, including abortion, in the year since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, according to the National Institute for Reproductive Health [NIRH] (based on funding in California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New Jersey and Washington), along with $9.4 million in funding from local governments,” wrote Forbes.
“Post-Dobbs, at least 15 localities and six new states dedicated nearly $208 million to funding abortion care, clinical reproductive health services and infrastructure, and practical support like patient navigation for those seeking abortions,” NIRH wrote in June of 2023.
“But conservative-led states outspent governments supporting abortion rights, putting at least $252.9 million on funding state alternatives to abortion programs since the Dobbs ruling, which directs money to anti-abortion ‘crisis pregnancy centers,'” Forbes added in 2023.
Post-Dobbs ‘Rage-Giving’ Slows as Philanthropy Focuses on Political Campaigns
Live Action News previously documented that, just two years after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned the decades-old Roe v. Wade court decision, abortion funds are allegedly drying up.
“People running abortion funds knew the flood of Dobbs ‘rage-giving’ would dry up quickly. And it has. But at the same time, tens of millions of dollars have flowed into the reproductive rights space,” wrote the Fuller Project.
“The small abortion funds that dot America — and that provide crucial money to women in desperate straits — are often overlooked by large philanthropic organizations that funnel the bulk of their grants to larger institutions such as the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the National Abortion Federation… More than half of the grants — $336 million — went to the big two: Planned Parenthood’s national headquarters… and the National Abortion Federation,” FP wrote separately.
“Donations to local funds have dwindled and support from Planned Parenthood, NAF, and institutional organizations have retreated. Local funds have been put in a position to disproportionately hold the weight of abortion access while being abandoned based on their more radical and staunch values than their national counterparts,” an open letter signed by multiple abortion fund organizations read in part.
Abortion funds are crucial to helping people get the care they deserve. Yet as our expert Candace Gibson explains, donations to funds have slowed while the need for care has increased post-Dobbs.
Supporting abortion funds protects access for all.
More: https://t.co/pswQ6BbM8B pic.twitter.com/TB6e6YYPbB
— Guttmacher Institute (@Guttmacher) August 31, 2024
“By contrast, some national funds with resources that our organizations could only dream of are making it harder, not easier, to get abortion care,” the letter claimed.
“Amid this perfect storm slamming abortion providers and funds, yet another hit came on September 1,” claimed The Nation just days ago. “The nonprofit group Resources for Abortion Delivery is sunsetting a clinic-facing program called The Access Fund (TAF), which helped cover the cost of abortions up to 12 weeks for low-income people traveling from states with bans. TAF funds went to clinics in Illinois, New Mexico, Kansas, Georgia, and Florida, which have been considered ‘receiving states’ for traveling patients.”
“[P]hilanthropy could step up to fill the gaps,” reported The Nation, adding that two abortion funding organizations “name-checked Melinda Gates and MacKenzie Scott as people who could fund every abortion in the US if they wanted.”
But as the Fuller Project reported last year, “none of this was going to women needing abortions. Philanthropy has largely focused on a national campaign to reinstate Roe v. Wade.”
‘Well-Funded National’ Abortion Groups Focus on Elections, not Women
According to the South Carolina Daily Gazette, “41 abortion funds from around the country signed on to an op-ed in The Nation, saying there is a disconnect between the most visible national reproductive rights organizations, like Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation, and grassroots groups working to directly support those who need care.”
A separate article by The Nation described the letter as accusing “national reproductive rights groups” of “directing gargantuan amounts of money to ‘vague, multiyear electoral strategies’ rather than supporting people who need abortions now — and, in fact, cutting support to those people.”
There is an alarming disconnect between abortion funds, grassroots organizations that are actually providing access to abortion, and large national organizations that are advocating for access.https://t.co/35EK4WzOva
— The Nation (@thenation) August 7, 2024
Signatories of the letter included:
- ACCESS REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE
- Abortion Fund of Arizona
- Abortion Fund of Ohio
- Abortion Freedom Fund
- Abortion Liberation Fund of PA
- Abortion Rights Fund of Western MA
- Carolina Abortion Fund
- Cascades Abortion Support Collective
- Cobalt Abortion Fund
- DC Abortion Fund
- Eastern Massachusetts Abortion (EMA) Fund
- Emergency Medical Assistance
- Florida Access Network
- Frontera Fund
- Fund Texas Choice
- Holler Health Justice
- Indigenous Women Rising
- Jane’s Due Process
- Justice Empowerment Network (JEN)
- Kentucky Health Justice Network
- Louisiana Abortion Fund
- Midwest Access Coalition
- Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund
- Montana Abortion Access Program
- New York Abortion Access Fund
- Prairie Abortion Fund
- Reproductive Freedom Fund of New Hampshire
- Richmond Reproductive Freedom Project
- SYS Fund with The Afiya Center
- Tampa Bay Abortion Fund
- Tides for Reproductive Freedom
- Utah Abortion Fund
- West Fund
- Wild West Access Fund of Nevada
The open letter pointed to smaller groups that oversee abortion funds, expressing “frustrations” that were allegedly “brought on by the failure of national reproductive health, rights, and access organizations to attend to the needs of so many pregnant people on the ground.”
“… [S]ome national funds with resources that our organizations could only dream of are making it harder, not easier, to get abortion care,” wrote Tyler Barbarin of the Louisiana Abortion Fund, Macy Haverda of Wild West Access Fund of Nevada, Kris Lawler with Tampa Bay Abortion Fund, Josie Pinto with Reproductive Freedom Fund of New Hampshire, Destini Spaeth of Prairie Abortion Fund, Savannah Trebuna with Kentucky Health Justice Network, and Chelsea Williams-Diggs of the New York Abortion Access Fund.
They also accused national groups of being more political.
“[M]ore than 30 abortion funds published an open letter in The Nation saying national reproductive rights groups are directing gargantuan amounts of money to ‘vague, multiyear electoral strategies’ rather than supporting people who need abortions now.”https://t.co/0imFQjsVmd
— Pro-Choice NC (@ProChoice_NC) September 10, 2024
“At the same time, Democrats are making abortion a central issue in their election-year campaigns, and their allies at well-funded national reproductive rights and health nonprofit organizations invest millions in vague, multiyear electoral strategies,” abortion funds leaders stated in the letter.
The open letter insinuated that national groups like Planned Parenthood had the resources to assist women obtaining abortions but were blaming “budget constraints” as a hurdle to granting dollars to abortion funds. Signers of the letter described the excuses as “warped perspectives and priorities of the most powerful groups in our movement.”
Letter: ‘Out-of-Touch Legacy Orgs’ have ‘Siphon[ed] Support’ for Abortion Campaigns
The abortion funds letter was especially critical of the group Abortion Access Now, a coalition of national pro-abortion organizations including Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America), which vowed a $100 million “investment” to “secure the federal right to abortion,” vowing to “[e]nd the discriminatory Hyde Amendment and other bans on coverage…” according to the Abortion Access Now Campaign website.
The letter also criticized national abortion organizations who “siphon support from institutional funders and grassroots donors” to “capitalize on the Dobbs rage donations, and funnel that money into campaign bank accounts.”
i used to get shit for telling people to stop donating to planned parenthood. my response was always to look up what the ceo makes, talk to someone who works at one, and just donate to abortion funds or gofundmes/people directly instead
— kiki (@sovery_) September 5, 2024
“This is all being done with the promise that this time they’ll be successful in getting their ducks in a row in Congress and repealing the Hyde Amendment,” the letter added, calling the “campaign” a “gross abuse of funding and publicity that deprioritizes actual access to abortion care right now.”
“It is disheartening to be engaged in this work and, in moments of political crisis, to witness groups that should be our partners in the fight—uplifting, investing in, and centering our expertise and critical role—fail us, too. In a larger reproductive justice ecosystem where we should all be working together to create community systems to affect change at all levels, this ‘new’ campaign is just more of the same,” they added.
“There is clearly a misalignment in values between mainstream, national nonprofits and local abortion funds. We’ve frustratingly watched them support outdated calls to ‘restore Roe,’ to actively lobby against expanding legal protections to abortion pills by mail, and minimize the importance of expanded access to abortions later in pregnancy,” the abortion fund groups wrote.
“The vision of reproductive freedom must come from those most directly impacted rather than the same few out-of-touch legacy organizations with more wealth than all abortion funds combined,” the signers of organizations overseeing abortion funds added.
Force Taxpayers for Abortions the Industry will Not Fund
Instead of placing all the blame on allegedly greedy and political national abortion organizations, those overseeing abortion funds are instead advocating for forcing the taxpayer to fund the same abortions their own supporters have stopped paying for.
“The White House could provide federal funding for out-of-state abortion travel like it’s doing for military members, declaring a reproductive health emergency if necessary. Funding travel rather than procedure costs gets around the federal Hyde Amendment, which Congress doesn’t have the votes to repeal,” The Nation wrote.
Karishma Oza, director of care coordination at DuPont Clinic, an all-trimester ‘late term’ abortion facility in Washington, D.C., “suggested that the government could fund free or low-cost ultrasounds so people can get accurate pregnancy dating rather than getting turned away by clinics for being too far along,” The Nation reported.
Interestingly, those are provided already at pro-life pregnancy help centers which currently outnumber abortion facilities. PRCs are being targeted by pro-abortion state leaders with frivolous lawsuits and restrictions.
The Hyde Amendment has banned the use of federal funds for abortion for nearly 50 years.
We’ve said this in our Black RJ Policy Agenda, and we’ll say it again: if we’re ever going to achieve #ReproJustice, we need to repeal the Hyde Amendment.https://t.co/rnh0m1c7SV
— In Our Own Voice (@BlackWomensRJ) August 28, 2024
In addition to taxpayer funding, groups overseeing abortion funds are also calling for states to “raise Medicaid reimbursement rates for abortion,” and to end private insurance and implement “universal healthcare that covers abortion.” They are also seeking “funding to open clinics in states with legal abortion and funding to train for more full-spectrum reproductive healthcare providers that would result in more providers in the longer term,” The Nation reported.
While groups that oversee abortion funds claim to speak up for women, the pullback in funding is likely part of a larger, more sinister agenda — because one thing Big Abortion understands is that when abortion is subsidized by the taxpayer, abortions increase.
And we all know who profits the most when that happens.
