Gift giving to support reproductive rights
24 December 2023
This essay is adapted from a blog by Jessica Valenti.
Let’s celebrate the season by supporting amazing abortion rights groups. You can donate in someone else’s name to turn that support into a thoughtful gift. What better present than making a meaningful impact where it’s needed most?
Give the gift of funding abortion
Let’s start with abortion and practical support funds: These are the folks who are working overtime - largely as volunteers - to ensure that the people who need abortions can get them. They’re working directly with patients to fund their abortions, along with any necessary travel, hotel rooms or child care. They’re also doing all that logistical work to make sure that patients’ care goes as smoothly and compassionately as possible.
Abortion funds have always been essential, but their importance has taken on new meaning since Roe was overturned. And in the last few months, donations to these groups have dropped off. So let’s end the year off right by giving generously!
To find an abortion fund in your community, click here.
These groups are seeing a huge uptick in patients—with some spending six figures every month to help people and they’re still not able to cover everyone who calls: DC Abortion Fund, Baltimore Abortion Fund, Chicago Abortion Fund, Florida Access Network, Brigid Alliance
Support legal & medical groups
It’s not just abortion funds that need your help. Since Roe was overturned, we’ve watched as women are denied life- and health-saving health care while others are criminalized for their pregnancy outcomes. In the background, doctors are fleeing anti-choice states and medical students are struggling to get the reproductive health training they need to provide their patients with adequate care. All of which is to say that legal and medical reproductive rights groups have their work cut out for them right now.
Ms. Valenti’s blog, Abortion, Every Day loves Pregnancy Justice. This organization has been working on criminalization for years - defending clients who’ve been arrested or prosecuted for having miscarriages or stillbirths and tracking criminalization trends. They’ve long been vanguards in the movement, connecting the dots and predicting exactly what we’re seeing in a post-Roe reality. Donate to Pregnancy Justice here.
If/When/How is another incredible group working on criminalization - right now they’re helping Brittany Watts, the Ohio woman who was charged with “abuse of a corpse” for flushing her miscarriage. They’ve also put out vital reports on how criminalization works, hold legal training and more. Donate to If/When/How here.
The Center for Reproductive Rights has been challenging abortion bans left and right and is at the forefront of reproductive rights legal work. They’ve challenged Texas’ abortion ban on behalf of 21 women whose lives were endangered by the state law and they represented Kate Cox, the Texas woman who was denied an abortion despite her dangerous and doomed pregnancy. Donate to CRR here.
Medical Students for Choice has been working for decades to ensure that the next generation of doctors are given comprehensive reproductive healthcare training no matter where they live. They mobilize students in their schools and communities, hold thousands of events and trainings each year and provide funding to the students who need it. You can donate to Medical Students for Choice here.
Truth (and data) matters
In the often overwhelming post-Roe landscape, it’s more important than ever that we have accurate, trustworthy and feminist-minded data on the impact of abortion bans. Two vital groups are the Guttmacher Institute and Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH). Guttmacher has been doing the incredibly difficult work of tracking anti-choice legislation, releasing reports on patient trends and delving into the nuances of the issues that matter. Plus, they’re doing it in a way that’s accessible to reporters, researchers and anyone else who needs reproductive health and rights stats. (Have you ever seen their data center?) Donate to the Guttmacher Institute by clicking here.
ANSIRH is one of my favorite organizations, not just because of their research, but because of the clear-eyed feminist lens they bring to all of their work. Abortion, Every Day has cited their work often, from their report on depictions of abortion in television to the harms caused by denying women abortions. Donate to ANSIRH here.
Finally, donate to Ms. Valenti’s great blog, Abortion Every Day, by clicking here.
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