USA- Tens of thousands of women traveled for abortion care again last year as state policies continue to shift

By Deidre McPhillips and Annette Choi, CNN
Tue June 24, 2025

For 2½ hours in February 2024, Gracie Ladd and her husband sat in heavy silence as they drove from their home in southern Wisconsin to Chicago. Their spirits were as cold and gray as the Midwestern winter passing by the car windows; Ladd was 20 weeks pregnant and had recently learned that a severe fetal condition made the developing baby “incompatible with life.” Staying pregnant could put her own health at risk, too.

But abortion wasn’t an option in Wisconsin, where a 175-year-old state law had effectively banned the procedure at the time. That law has since been overturned, but Ladd, her family and her doctors were stuck in a legal gray area that raised fear and worry. And instead of being surrounded by familiar comforts at one of the most distressing points of her life, Ladd had to take time off from work, coordinate child care for her 2-year-old son and travel more than 100 miles from home to a health care provider she had never met.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/24/health/abortion-state-travel-2024-dg

USA – Reproductive rights and justice groups plan for Trump’s return

By: Sofia Resnick
January 18, 2025

In the days following President-elect Donald Trump’s win last November, a national abortion-assistance hotline was being inundated with calls. “They were confused about whether abortion was even still legal in the country, because they have heard the rhetoric around Trump’s position on abortion,” said Brittany Fonteno, the president and CEO of the National Abortion Federation.

The association of abortion providers runs what Fonteno says is the largest financial assistance program for people seeking abortions and is among the many groups preparing for another potentially destabilizing shift in U.S. reproductive health policy after Trump takes office Monday.

Continued: https://lailluminator.com/2025/01/18/abortion-trump-2/

USA – A New Normal for Abortion Funds Without ‘Roe’

Despite a constantly shifting legal landscape and donations tapering off, abortion funds are helping as many people as they can with limited resources.

JUL 22, 2024
SUSAN BUTTENWIESER

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, people have been reaching out to abortion funds for help in historic numbers. In the first year after the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the National Network of Abortion Funds, a nationwide network of 100 abortion funds, financially supported more than 100,000 people seeking abortion care. NNAF disbursed over $36 million to people seeking abortions, and an additional $10 million in practical support funding, which includes transportation, lodging, and child care.

The decision also resulted in abortion funds receiving unprecedented amounts in donations. An influx of donations to Indigenous Women Rising, an abortion fund dedicated to Native and Indigenous people in the United States and Canada, allowed the organization to double its staff and expand employee benefits.

Continued: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/2024/07/22/a-new-normal-for-abortion-funds-without-roe/

USA – “Scarcity mindset”: As reproductive rights are eroded, abortion funds are running out of money

Advocates fear a reduction in funds will force more women to give birth

By NICOLE KARLIS
JULY 5, 2024

In 2024, the National Abortion Federation and Planned Parenthood’s Justice Fund had the largest budget in its history. Still, on July 1, the organizations had to make the difficult decision to slash their budgets from giving 50 percent assistance to people to 30 percent with no exceptions. This comes at a time when many abortion clinics in the north are seeing a surge in patients as a repercussion of Florida’s six-week abortion ban, and as Iowa’s six-week ban is expected to take effect later this month.

“We had to make this shift in funding because the need has skyrocketed with so many additional bans and people being forced to travel further care,” Brittany Fonteno, president and CEO of the National Abortion Federation, told Salon in a phone call. Fonteno added they’ve been spending approximately $6 million per month on procedural funding and upwards of $200,000 per month on travel funding.

Continued: https://www.salon.com/2024/07/05/scarcity-mindset-as-reproductive-rights-are-eroded-abortion-funds-are-running-out-of-money/

05.07.2024

Chicago Abortion Fund

DC Abortion Fund

Family Planning Associates

Megan Jeyifo

National Abortion Federation

Planned Parenthood Justice Fund

traveling for abortion

United States

Activism

Human Rights

In spite of abortion bans, self-managed abortions are safer than ever

In an increasingly restrictive landscape, self-managed medication abortions have become a critical option

By NICOLE KARLIS, Senior Writer
MAY 5, 2024

As the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in the 2022 Dobbs decision, abortion rights protesters held signs adorned with wire coat hangers. The symbol evoked memories from a pre-Roe era, when the only option to terminate an unwanted pregnancy was unsafe and potentially deadly.

As detailed by one retired gynecologist in the New York Times in 2008, the symbol of a wire coat hanger was “in no way a myth.” He recalled a period between 1948 and 1953 when women would frequently arrive in his office with a coat hanger still trapped in the cervix — and it wasn’t just coat hangers. Crochet hooks, soda bottles, and darning needles were also used in attempts to end pregnancies.

Continued: https://www.salon.com/2024/05/05/in-spite-of-abortion-bans-self-managed-abortions-are-safer-than-ever/

Florida abortion providers brace for six-week ban: ‘Where are these 80,000 patients gonna go?’

In separate decision, state supreme court agrees to allow voters to decide on enshrining rights in constitution in November

Carter Sherman
Tue 2 Apr 2024

Florida, the last bastion of abortion access in the south-eastern United States, will ban abortion past six weeks of pregnancy starting next month, leaving abortion providers and their supporters in the state and across the country scrambling to deal with the fallout for patients.

On Monday, the Florida state supreme court upheld a 15-week abortion ban, a move that removed the barriers for a separate, six-week ban that takes effect on 1 May. In a separate ruling, the court also agreed to let Florida residents weigh in on the issue through a November ballot measure to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution – a decision that opens a new front in an election that is already sure to be dominated by abortion politics.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/02/florida-abortion-ban-six-weeks

USA – As Abortion Access Shrinks, Hospitals Fill in the Gaps

By Allison McCann, Photographs by Jamie Kelter Davis
Oct. 23, 2023
For this article, Allison McCann and Jamie Kelter Davis spent time with a patient from Indiana as she underwent an abortion at a Chicago hospital.

A. wanted a cheeseburger and to go home. She had made the three-hour trip from Indianapolis to Chicago a day earlier and had been at the hospital since 6:30 a.m., with an empty stomach, waiting to be taken into an operating room to have an abortion.

It was her second trip to Chicago in two weeks, and the third time she had tried to end her pregnancy.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/10/23/us/abortion-hospitals.html

USA – In Abortion Safe Havens, Organizers Prepare to Assist Those Fleeing Restrictions

by Tyler Walicek, Truthout
June 18, 2022

Last month’s leak of a Supreme Court draft ruling rendered the longstanding fears of abortion rights activists a veritable certainty: Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that established a federal right to abortion in the United States, is under dire and imminent threat.

While “safe haven” or “sanctuary” states and cities still offer refuge to interstate abortion seekers, access remains a patchwork, presenting financial and logistical hurdles that most deeply impact the marginalized. Under-resourced abortion funds, clinics and activist groups will be in for a struggle merely to hold onto existing gains; their driven organizers and staffers will face staggering challenges amid an influx of abortion refugees.

Continued: https://truthout.org/articles/in-abortion-safe-havens-organizers-prepare-to-assist-those-fleeing-restrictions/

Planned Parenthood builds staff network to help U.S. women navigate abortion hurdles

By Gabriella Borter
June 13, 2022

Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights groups are expanding a network of staff to guide patients through what is expected to become an increasingly complex and expensive process to obtain abortions across much of the United States.

Regional affiliates of Planned Parenthood said they are hiring more "patient navigators," a role dedicated to helping women find abortion appointments and secure money to cover medical, travel and childcare costs.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/planned-parenthood-builds-staff-network-help-us-women-navigate-abortion-hurdles-2022-06-13/