Donations to U.S. abortion rights teams, clinics surge after Supreme Court docket leak

Could 4 (Reuters) - Donations have flooded into abortion clinics and abortion-rights advocacy groups since the leak of a U.S. Supreme Court draft ruling that showed the justices apparently poised to overturn the 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade decision.

The draft ruling, which was revealed by Politico on Monday night, sparked a frenzy of giving by Americans to abortion clinics, teams that help people pay for abortions and organizations looking for to protect abortion entry.

Beneficiaries included nationwide organizations with giant operating budgets in addition to small, independent clinics and regional teams that are often missed.

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NARAL Pro-Choice America, a nonprofit that received $12.9 million in donations in fiscal year 2021, noticed a 1,403% increase in donations in the 24 hours after the news broke in comparison with the day before, spokesperson Kristin Ford stated. Fifty-one % of donors had been giving for the first time.

Between Monday evening and midday Wednesday, greater than 4,000 donors gave more than $100,000 to the Abortion Care Network, a national association of 150 unbiased U.S. abortion clinics. That was the most important wave of donations over that size of time that the affiliation had ever received.

The money will go directly to the clinics and assist them stay open to supply reproductive health companies even when state laws prohibit them from offering abortions, the network's Govt

Director Nikki Madsen stated.

"We'll proceed to be preventing in the states to deliver back abortion entry," Madsen said. "We need to preserve those clinics open in that interim."

Advocates each for and against abortion rights say they may use the Supreme Court docket's ruling, expected by the end of June, to mobilize voters for the 2022 midterm elections. National anti-abortion groups Susan B. Anthony Listing and March for Life didn't instantly reply to inquiries about donations.

Deliberate Parenthood and Emily's Record, groups that advocate for reproductive rights, additionally didn't instantly respond.

The Roe Fund, an abortion fund in Oklahoma that gives money to the state's clinics to help patients' procedures, had more than 8,000 donors contribute more than $50,000 on Tuesday, the fund's Treasurer Janice Massey stated.

On Tuesday night time, Oklahoma enacted a legislation banning abortions after six weeks of being pregnant, shutting down virtually all abortion services in the state. learn extra

"This is certainly the largest surge (in donations) I've seen within the 13 years I've been doing this work," Massey mentioned.

The Kentucky Health Justice Community, one other abortion fund, received greater than 1,000 donations with a median value of $50 since Monday evening, Operations Director Ashley Jacobs mentioned on Wednesday. When a Kentucky law suspended in-state abortion services for eight days in April, the community assisted sufferers touring to Ohio and Indiana for abortions.

Donors additionally gave to organizations in areas that would see an influx of sufferers looking for abortions as a result of native legal guidelines protect abortion rights.

The DC Abortion Fund, which funds abortions within the nation's capital as well as in Virginia and Maryland, obtained greater than $105,000 in donations between Monday night time and Wednesday morning, spokesperson Devin Simpson mentioned.

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Reporting by Gabriella Borter; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Cynthia Osterman

Our Requirements: The Thomson Reuters Trust Rules.