These abortion funds and practical support groups are bridging the gap for patients

This story is part of a series on the fallout of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned Roe v. Wade and ended the federal constitutional right to abortion.

Even before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, people sought out abortion funds and practical support groups as stopgap measures to receive abortion care. Today, these groups are essential, particularly for low-income and marginalized pregnant people, covering everything from travel expenses to child care and even the procedure itself.

The Brigid Alliance

Five years ago, the Brigid Alliance, a practical support organization that provides assistance to people who are forced to travel outside of their home states for abortion care, opened its doors when clinics in Texas began to close with the passage of S.B. 8.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed S.B. 8 into law in May 2021, making abortion care after six weeks of pregnancy illegal and allowing anyone to sue anyone else for providing or helping to provide someone with abortion care.

Serra Sippel, interim executive director of the Brigid Alliance, tells the American Independent Foundation that in the last five years, and particularly since Roe was overturned, there’s been a substantial increase in the number of clients, mainly from Georgia, Florida, and Texas.

“In the six months since the Dobbs decision, we’ve provided practical support to over 800 clients traveling. That’s nearly 25% more than we supported in the same period pre-Dobbs,” Sippel says. “How we track the numbers, from August 2022 to February 2023 we supported 809 clients compared with 615 clients from August 2021 to February 2022.”

Sippel adds that their clients today travel farther than they have had to before.

“Our clients today, they’re traveling 1,300 miles roundtrip to get their abortion, which is up 30% from last year, and the average cost is $1,400 for clients, and that does not include the cost of the procedure,” Sippel says.

Fund Texas Choice

Anna Rupani, executive director of Fund Texas Choice, a nonprofit that offers travel and practical support to abortion-seekers, tells the American Independent Foundation that many of their callers have never flown on a plane before. And with so many new bans in the nation, more people are having to fly versus drive, as less restrictive states are often farther away from where they live.

“Anecdotally, they’re nervous and scared and don’t know exactly how to traverse airlines, airports, that sort of stuff,” Rupani says. “These people are also very grateful that organizations like ours and abortion funds exist to help them navigate this because it’s so hard to do.”

Rupani adds: “It’s not just distance traveled; it’s the time that folks are having to spend away from their normal and daily activities, or taking care of their children or going to work. A lot of our callers don’t have salaried jobs, they have hourly jobs. So when they’re missing work to go to their appointments and having to travel further, they’re losing out on wages.”

Jane’s Due Process

Jane’s Due Process is a nonprofit abortion fund that focuses its support on people under the age of 18 who need abortion care or birth control. The organization offers practical support for travel, funds abortion care, and offers legal assistance navigating Texas’ judicial bypass restrictions on abortion care and contraception. Bypass restrictions require an order from a judge that gives a minor the right to obtain an abortion without the consent of their parent or legal guardian.

Irma Garcia is the client services manager and a sexual health educator with Jane’s Due Process.

“Most of our clients are in marginalized communities,” Garcia tells the American Independent Foundation. “Black and Hispanic young people are our main clients. … I think that most of them are also between 13 and 17.”

Garcia explains that it’s common in her work to hear stories of “young people just not being able to tell their families that they’re pregnant because they could get kicked out or are in an abusive relationship.” Without Jane’s Due Process, Garcia says, the minors “would be sentenced to parenthood that they did not want, or be locked in a relationship that’s detrimental to their life.”

Garcia adds:

There are still so many people falling through the cracks in not being able to access abortion care because of that ability to move around without supervision from their parents or caregivers that are against abortion and will be forcing them to carry to term. Which is what we also saw pre-Roe v. Wade if they didn’t get the judicial bypass and were not able to travel outside of state, then they would not be able to get an abortion because their parents would find out or the elements in their life just did not let them go out of state.

Graci D’Amore, the senior manager of direct services at Jane’s Due Process, tells the American Independent Foundation that although they focus primarily on the needs of Texans, since the fall of Roe the organization has gotten calls to its hotline from teens in Florida, Louisiana, and Oklahoma.

“I think these bans also cause a lot of harm because they push people further and further into their pregnancy, and people know that they want to have an abortion, but they find out that they’re pregnant at six, seven weeks most of the time,” Amore says. “But because of these bans and trying to figure out when to travel, how to travel, how to pay for it, they’re being forced to have these second-trimester abortions, which are longer and just more strain on everybody. It’s just really awful to put people through this when they should be able to access care in their community from their own doctor.”

Frontera Fund

Frontera Fund is an abortion fund based in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. The group provides financial support for medication abortions as well as abortion procedures. Many of their clients are undocumented.

Cathy Torres, the group’s organizing manager, tells the American Independent Foundation that because so many of their clients are undocumented and from marginalized communities, the area is more policed than most, posing a huge risk for patients who reach out to them.

“People who are undocumented who need abortion care are very aware of the risks that are out there. This is the life that they live,” Torres says. “So if someone is undocumented, we’ll fund them, regardless of where they are living, because we’re very aware of the barriers to even get ahold of us.”

Torres says that it’s often easier for U.S. citizens to cross the border into Mexico to get abortion medication from local pharmacies than it is for undocumented people to obtain it in restrictive states such as Texas.

“There’s plenty of pharmacies that carry the medication that’s needed. And people for decades have been going over there because of the proximity. If you’re undocumented, though, you can’t, because you can’t come back,” Torres says.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.