Sunday, December 12, 2021

Abortion Funds Are in Crisis Preparing for the End of Roe v. Wade

After Joe Biden won the presidency, Diana Parker-Kafka lost a $5,000 grant. Parker-Kafka is the executive director of the Midwest Access Coalition (MAC), a practical abortion fund in Illinois that covers transportation costs for people traveling to and from the Midwest. A local funder had invited MAC to reapply for 2021 funding before changing its mind; now that Biden was heading to the White House, Parker-Kafka recalls the group saying, it wasn't going to directly support abortion. She understood the implication: They thought, with a Democrat in the White House, abortion was no longer threatened so they could focus on other causes.

"I get the sense that a lot of funders don't actually know what's happening on the ground," Parker-Kafka said. "We lost the federal courts under Trump. We lost the Supreme Court and the fact that SCOTUS took on the Mississippi case is just a clear sign that this is going backwards. We need to be ready."

MAC's client load has doubled every year since launching in 2015, and these days, it's not uncommon for them to fly someone from South Dakota to Colorado for an abortion—a procedure that is technically legal, but inaccessible, in their state. Even though Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land, abortion is already legal in name only in much of the country. The procedure costs hundreds or even thousands of dollars, which patients often pay for out of pocket, and as clinics continue to close, getting abortion care can also mean booking a flight, hotel room, or babysitter. Abortion funds are the safety net to fund the logistics of getting an abortion—a net that is badly fraying.

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