After National Funding Cuts for Abortion Funds, “July was pure hell”
Update: This article was updated with a quote from DuPont Clinic.
On July 23, DC Abortion Fund made a public emergency funding appeal.
“We have a DC caller with an appointment this week and a $14,000 funding gap,” the organization said on X. “We’re calling on the community to dig in and close this gap!”
DCAbortionFund (DCAF) ranks among the largest independent abortion funds in the United States. Alisha Dingus is the development director of DCAF. She said that emergency requests are not something they like to do because it can create panic. If DCAF runs out of funds, everyone is in trouble. Since July 1, the National Abortion Federation, which operates the largest financial assistance program in the United States for abortion patients, has made significant reductions to the amount it offers each person. The organization stated that these changes were necessary to ensure the funds would last through the end the year. Brittany Fonteno, CEO and president of NAF told Rewire News Group that the organization has generous funding. It’s not unlimited funding unfortunately. And because the need for abortions has increased, the money will be depleted much more quickly in 2024. But, according to available spending data, RNG estimates that supporting them cost well over $100 million.
Previously, the Justice Fund, a shared NAF and PPFA program, covered up to 50 percent of the cost of an abortion for qualifying callers. The ceiling has been reduced to 30 percent. But the abortion fund leaders from around the country, who are left to deal with this deficit, told RNG these numbers do not reflect the true extent of the cuts. Discretionary funds that used to cover well over 50 percent of some patients’ costs are also gone, and each NAF member clinic now has a monthly cap on assistance, which sometimes results in patients receiving even less than 30 percent.
These changes were announced with only a few weeks’ notice.
“July was hell,” said Macy Haverda, president of the Wild West Access Fund of Nevada (WWAF). I don’t know how else to put it. “July was hell.”
With the biggest and best-funded national organizations in the space now saying they can no longer sustain the level of assistance they were providing, the abortion access movement is staring down a cliff, confronting the real possibility that large numbers of people could now be unable to obtain abortions altogether.
This change and–in the eyes of many grassroots groups–its inexcusably last-minute nature, have prompted what many say should be a reckoning in the reproductive rights and justice movements about who controls the purse strings and priorities.
According to financial records, the NAF Hotline Fund–the nonprofit through which NAF manages its financial assistance–disbursed more than $52 million in grants and direct assistance in 2022, the year Roe was overturned.
Local abortion funds, nearly half of which remain all-volunteer operations, still rely heavily on small-dollar donations, as opposed to NAF’s institutional support. Nevertheless, abortion funds moved mountains: In the first year following Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the National Network of Abortion Funds reported that its member funds collectively distributed nearly $37 million.
Still, NAF is the single biggest player in the abortion funding game. And changes to its funding structure sent everyone else in the space scrambling.
NAF first warned its members–mostly abortion clinics, and a handful of independent abortion funds–that an adjustment was coming to its financial assistance for procedures in late May. Another email detailing the cut to 30 percent arrived on June 6, according to several sources who received the email.
However, recipients told Rewire News Group that the initial email did not make clear that each member clinic would also be operating with a monthly cap on NAF assistance. One abortion provider claimed that this information was shared only in meetings on June 18-20. This left only about a week and a half before cuts went into effect on July 1.
And because so few independent abortion funds are NAF members, most heard the news secondhand, via group chats or from partner organizations.
“My phone, oh my God,” said Megan Jeyifo, executive director of Chicago Abortion Fund (CAF), another of the country’s largest independent abortion funds. “All the clinicians started calling me, like, ‘What are we going to do?'”
A flood of demand
Shutterstock
Jeyifo stated that
CAF receives about 1,000 calls per month. In July, the number of calls jumped from 1,000 to 1,700. CAF, in an effort to simplify the process, made a grant of $20,000 to Family Planning Associates, Illinois’ largest abortion clinic. A July block grant of $80,000 didn’t last the month. A July block grant of $80,000 didn’t last the month.
Abortion funds across the country saw a similarly unmanageable increase in need.
Florida’s Tampa Bay Abortion Fund pledged more than $100,000 in July alone, according to board member and volunteer Kris Lawler. That’s double what it spent in previous months, even after Florida’s six-week ban went into effect in May.
Baltimore Abortion Fund also made an emergency appeal in July, writing on X that it would need $25,000 to help 30 clients close funding gaps.
WWAF’s payments to clinics in July were 24 percent higher than in June, Haverda said, and 61 percent higher than in April, a more typical month.
Multiple abortion funds said they had clients who arrived at clinics and were told that, despite what NAF’s hotline promised, less assistance was available to them due to the caps. Two funds said they had callers who rescheduled end-of-month appointments in July for August in the hopes of being able to receive the full 30 percent assistance.
The changes have forced many funds to make their own shifts. DCAF, who had funded clinics in West Virginia and as far as Virginia, has now limited its service area only to Washington, D.C. Dingus stated that the fund has now established a budget per week for clients who travel from outside of Washington, D.C. DCAF has exceeded this limit every week since it implemented this system. For now, DCAF will still go over its budget to help D.C. residents.
Chicago Abortion Fund, too, was a “fund of last resort” for many who had been turned away elsewhere, Jeyifo said. It had previously funded people seeking care in clinics as far away as Kansas, but has had to suspend this practice.
Colorado’s Cobalt Abortion Fund also announced new capacity limits last month. Melisa Hidalgo Cuellar, Cobalt Abortion Fund’s Director, stated that the fund spent more on funding procedures in July than any other month. South Carolina’s Palmetto State Abortion Fund Executive Director Ashlyn Preaux said they implemented a $300 cap on local procedures, and added that the NAF clinic caps make booking appointments “unmanageable.”
I Need an A told RNG that Blue Ridge Abortion Fund, Carolina Abortion Fund, Florida Access Network, Indigenous Women Rising, Richmond Reproductive Freedom Project, and Utah Abortion Fund also reported closures or funding reductions in July.
Some of these funds are turning people away for the first time since Dobbs. Some funds still want to avoid this.
Destini spaeth, chairperson of the Prairie Abortion Fund said that she understood why some funds were setting new limits.
“But for us, any money we have in the bank is going to abortion seekers,” said Spaeth. “Nobody is not gonna have an abortion because we didn’t contribute.”
One caller traveling from Georgia to Minnesota for her abortion told Spaeth she had contacted ten other abortion funds. The struggle is continuing into August. It has never been this bad. Even before the cuts were made, local abortion funds filled in large gaps for those who did not qualify. “We are not going to concede to this funding crisis, and I think national organizations take that and weaponize it … because the function, at least, of KHJN is to provide direct services.”
The cuts are especially devastating in areas where funds and clinics were more reliant on additional discretionary support from NAF. For example, Haverda said NAF would fund some second trimester procedures in Nevada up to 80 percent.
Exceptions were especially crucial for later abortion care, which often takes place across multiple days and is inaccessible even in many states where abortion is broadly legal. Both the procedure itself and the incidental costs are more expensive.
“For better or for worse, we were so dependent on NAF exceptions, especially for hospital-based care,” Jeyifo said.
Dingus said that in D.C., NAF often fully funded first trimester abortions, allowing DCAF to focus on funding clients needing later abortions. This was critically important, given that the D.C. area is one of few places in the country where outpatient, all-trimester abortion care is available.
“Now we’re seeing people who aren’t even getting 30
… $600
on a $15,000 procedure, it’s like nothing.” Dingus said.
Dr. Diane Horvath is the co-founder and MD of Partners in Abortion Care in Maryland, which offers all-trimester abortion care. Horvath explained that we were able to offer a higher fee for those patients. “The same thing goes for patients who are truly indigent, i.e. those that have no housing and don’t have any money. We could have worked with NAF to ensure that they were fully or nearly fully funded. This possibility is gone too.”
Horvath was interviewed by RNG on the 9th of August. Just that week, she said, Partners discounted almost $15,000 in services for patients.
“That’s a giant chunk of payroll for the month,” Horvath said. I can’t do it every week. But I did it because people are desperate, and we want to do the right thing.”
She added that since the cuts went into effect several patients have not shown up for their appointments.
“I’ve told our schedulers, please tell people to come with whatever they have,” Horvath said. “Our intention is to see them even if the don’t pay the full fee.”
But, independent clinics, like Partners, can’t continue to do this for long if they hope to remain open. “Between July 1 and August 9, 2024, the clinic has already lost over $51,000 in clinic discounts.”
Independent clinics like Partners and DuPont can’t continue on like this for much longer if they want to keep their doors open.
A $20 million funding gap
Alexis McGill Johnson, Planned Parenthood president (Austen Risolvato/Rewire News Group)
[percent]Fonteno told RNG it was a “devastating, heartbreaking decision to decrease the amount of spend per patient in order to stretch our dollars for the rest of the calendar year so that we could try to help as many as possible.”[in NAF assistance]She emphasized that the per-patient cuts are not the result of a loss of funding or an overall budget reduction, but rather a result of demand outpacing NAF’s current resources. Fonteno stated that NAF funded $6 million in abortion care per month prior to the changes. Fonteno stated that NAF would require an additional $20 million to fund the program at its current level and continue to cover 50 percent of eligible patient’s procedure costs. She also said NAF would need an additional $1.4 million to help with travel expenses.
Fonteno told RNG that NAF’s contribution to the Justice Fund for 2024 is $55 million, which is “the most generous in the history of the program.”
However, each new abortion ban drives demand. Since Florida’s six week ban was implemented, NAF saw a 575 per cent increase in the number of callers needing to travel outside of the state to receive care. The increase is also due to an increase in travel costs. A Planned Parenthood spokesperson said that the organization was unable to disclose its exact contribution to either the Justice Fund or patient assistance in general, due to its disclosure policy regarding donations and grants. RNG had reported last year that PPFA planned to halt one of its internal programs, the Emergency Access Fund. However, that fund was at least partially reinstated after publication.
“Providing direct patient support to help connect people to care is needed, but cannot solve the failures of our health-care system and political landscape,” Danika Severino Wynn, vice president of care and access at PPFA, said in a statement to RNG.
$100M policy campaign–without grassroots abortion funds
Adding insult to injury for many abortion funds was the announcement of the Abortion Access Now (AAN) campaign, which came in late June, on the second Dobbs anniversary, as funds and clinics were scrambling to prepare for the funding cuts.
AAN is a ten-year, $100 million policy campaign from major reproductive rights groups. At the time of the campaign’s announcement, NAF was not part of the coalition but has since joined “as a steering committee member, in a solely advisory capacity to share the voice and perspective of independent abortion providers,” according to a spokesperson.
But no local abortion funds have ever been part of the coalition. Even the National Network of Abortion Funds, the national organization whose membership includes most, though not all local funds, was never approached.
“We found out when everyone else found out about it,” NNAF Executive Director Oriaku Njoku said. “I cannot imagine doing any work around abortion access without including the people who actually make abortion accessible in that conversation.”
“The idea that they didn’t engage funds beforehand … it just, frankly, shows what they think of us,” Jeyifo said.
Trebuna agreed.
“I really feel like the meetings were a way for them to say, ‘Well, we tried. She said that abortion funds are always angry about something. “As Abortion Access Now our focus is on driving a federal strategy for abortion access. “As Abortion Access Now, our focus is driving a federal policy strategy for abortion access,” said the executive committee of AAN in a letter to RNG.
NAF actively raises funds to restore its former financial assistance capability. The abortion fund leaders, however, said that they would rather have the money invested in their own organization. The abruptness of the cuts, many of them said, is proof that national organizations aren’t the best stewards of their substantial funds.
Abortion funds do the same work as national assistance programs better, and with fewer resources, fund leaders argued. Many expressed their frustration at the rapid expansion of NAF’s Travel Assistance Program after Dobbs. They said that it has created many logistical issues which must be resolved by abortion funds who are more familiar with their local area. This moment has “called us to reexamine how we move money,” Njoku stated. “What that looks like is still in discussion because everything just feels so uncertain.”
Abortion funds had hoped to see a major shift in philanthropy post-Dobbs, but that hasn’t come to fruition.
“Even when we had the increase in donations, it was still mostly small-dollar grassroots donations,” Dingus said. “We didn’t see big philanthropy come to abortion funds and say, what can we do to make this process easier for abortion seekers?”
That’s what needs to happen next, fund leaders said.
“Either we push these national organizations towards change, or we push them out of the way,” Spaeth said.
Correction
: This article incorrectly stated the number of calls Chicago Abortion Fund receive. This article incorrectly stated the number of calls Chicago Abortion Fund receives.
