On a sunny day in 2001 I was 15-years-old, and my eyes were watering with frustration in the stairwell of a Congressional office building in Washington, DC. I was attempting to lobby my elected officials on my opposition as a teen girl to the Child Custody Protection Act, which would make it illegal to take a minor across state lines to obtain an abortion in a state without parental notification or parental consent laws.
I felt strongly that this law empowered abusers, and I intended to have my say to my legislators even though I was not yet old enough to vote. As a young teen living in Texas I already knew many girls my age who had been sexually abused by relatives. I already knew girls who had been kicked out of their homes for being sexually active, for being LGBTQ or perceived as LGBTQ, for dating outside their race, or for being pregnant, people who could never safely obtain parental consent if they needed it.
I already knew girls who became vulnerable to adult men because they were rejected by their parents and made homeless, who said no to these men but by force or forced dependency were ignored, who then would without a dollar to their name need to find a way to terminate a pregnancy in a state that made them vulnerable to all of their abusers. I was lobbying my senators and congressman because I felt so helpless to assist them otherwise, I was just a kid.
I remembered these friends and classmates again when I stood in that stairwell in our nation’s capitol at the receiving end of the derision of two smug male college-age Republican House interns. I knew in my heart even then it wasn’t right that where we lived should determine if we were safe from harm or not.
I decided that day that no matter how long it would take me to grow up enough to make it happen, I was going to personally do something about it.
My Promise to Fund Abortion
Today I’m an adult with a job that affords me the ability to pay for an abortion should I need it, putting me in the minority among people who might ever need an abortion in America. This is because there are many more for whom the cost of an abortion is half or all of a month’s salary, for whom it means days of missed work, for whom it hinges on the last $100 in their bank account.
Additionally, while incomes where I am here in California tend to be higher, the cost of the procedure is mostly static across the country. The Guttmacher Institute found that in 2009 (the most recent year where it found available data), the average cost for a surgical abortion at 10 weeks was $470, of which women paid $451. The average cost of the abortion pill was $490, of which women paid $483. And so the relative cost of an abortion to someone in say, where I used to live in Texas, is disproportionately draining.
Sometimes to affect such intense macro issues, you have to take a firm grip on the corner of it you hold in your hands. So I regularly make this pledge publicly to my friends, family, and networks:
If anyone I know, or someone they know is ever in need of an abortion and cannot afford it, I will give them what money I can and leverage my network to get the procedure completely funded.
Exactly how powerful this pledge is became apparent just earlier this month when my friends and I got an abortion funded almost instantly, just using Facebook.
Funding an Abortion in 30 Minutes
Earlier last month a friend came to me and said they knew someone who needed help affording an abortion, someone who had 25% funded through a community fund, but needed help coming up with the last $350. Because they had concerns about privacy, I offered to front the donation myself, and made this post to Facebook (redacted for personal details):
First one friend offered $5 in the comments, so I private messaged them offering my Paypal and Venmo details, and promised I’d send confirmation of the transfer to the Paypal of the party in need.
Then another friend commented, then another.
Donations came in so fast I could barely refresh my keep up with the tally as I updated it in the FB post. In less time than it takes to finish an episode of Broad City, dozens of individual donations of $5, $10, $20 added up to the full $250 we needed to fund this person’s procedure.
Before it was done, more than 50 people offered to give both in the comments and in my inbox, and most weren’t even fast enough to get their offers to help to me before the need was met.
Why this worked:
- I went in first. You don’t have to give $100 like I did, but stating that you will give and how much exactly to get the momentum started is critical.
- I was personal, I thanked each person who gave personally in the comments and in private messages.
- I asked my friends; not a single person asked for the confirmation it was sent, said they trusted me, that our friendship was the insurance. I posted the final transfer amount screenshots anyway.
It’s important to note that the only reason I was able to find out about the needs of this person in a different state was because I made this known to my friends on a platform that connects us across geography. By using our personal networks from across the stages of our lives, we can break the politics of place and help drive funds to people we wouldn’t otherwise know.
Take the #GotYourBack Pledge With Me
Beyond this kind of donation, the long-game is for us to continue supporting the election of pro-choice legislators and litigation advocacy to protect our reproductive rights. But between election cycles and court dates sit the lives of real people who cannot afford to have their access to care be made object-lessons in time and place. Until those laws change, not one person should have to be pregnant when they don’t want to be just because we couldn’t undo the damage of anti-choice legislation fast enough.
In your hands you hold a very powerful, very real piece of this problem, something that makes a tangible dent for individual people, for communities strained by barriers to access, and for the abortion funds that already do so much with so little.
For all these reasons, we must personally fund abortion as its own specific, necessary form of justice. If you believe this is true, I invite you to take action with me:
- If you have the means and you feel safe doing so, and especially if you have a particular group of people with whom you’ve been politically active over this last election cycle, copy and post this to them in a way or on a platform that feels comfortable:
“If you or someone you know is ever in need of an abortion and cannot afford it, I will give them what I can, including cash, a ride to the clinic, a place to sleep if they are traveling, childcare, a meal. I will also ask others I know to help me fund the procedure if needed.”
2. If you’re in San Francisco, come join us for the upcoming Abortion Access Hackathon, where we’ll be bringing together reproductive healthcare professionals, repro rights activists, legal analysts, and tech professionals to build solutions to ensure that abortion funds can reach as many people as possible with their work.
3. Donate to the National Network of Abortion Funds, or click through to this page to find a local fund near you and set up a single or recurring gift.
Pregnancy doesn’t know who you voted for. It doesn’t know what side of a state line you live on, or what government is in power. I believe in personally funding abortion exactly because it could happen anytime, in any place, to any one of us.
I will fight for your rights to get an abortion even if you are pro-life, because I have your back. I will give you or someone you love money for an abortion if you can’t afford it, even if you think it will never, could never be you.
If you or someone you know ever needs help funding an abortion, you know where to find me.
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