Abortion fund directors nationwide have been raising the alarm for months about declining donations and their struggles to meet the needs of those seeking help with the financial burdens of finding abortion care, especially those who live in one of?22 states?with near-total bans or severely restrictive abortion laws. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Advocates for abortion access say compounding crises of abortion bans, rising economic costs and systemic health care issues are beginning to cause significant funding challenges and potential disruptions to reproductive care of all kinds.
Several people described it as a “perfect storm” of problems with the U.S. health care system, particularly post-pandemic, and the rise of abortion bans and other reproductive care restrictions in the wake of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in June 2022. Many individuals must now travel hundreds or thousands of miles to seek abortion care, and the consolidation of demand at a smaller number of clinics is increasing wait times, which means pregnancies progress to a more advanced stage and the costs balloon further. According to leaders of Planned Parenthood affiliates and abortion funds, there simply aren’t enough dollars right now to support the need at any level. A recent report from #WeCount showed the number of abortions nationwide started to increase in 2017 and has continued to increase post-Dobbs, with more than 102,000 abortions in January alone.
Abortion fund directors nationwide have been raising the alarm for months about declining donation revenue and their struggles to meet the needs of those seeking help with the financial burdens of finding abortion care, especially those who live in one of 22 states with near-total bans or severely restrictive abortion laws. That includes every state in the Southeast.
Planned Parenthood of Northern New England announced at the beginning of the month a projected funding shortfall of about $8.6 million over the next three years, and Planned Parenthood of Greater New York announced just a few days later that it would pause abortion care at or beyond 20 weeks because of financial struggles that began earlier this year. The National Abortion Federation runs America’s largest financial assistance program for abortion patients and said that just in the first half of this year it has partially funded more than 60,000 people’s abortions — a total of around $6 million per month — but has now had to reduce patient grants from 50% of the cost of care to 30%.
Even in areas with new abortion restrictions, such as Florida, donations have declined significantly. Stephanie Loraine Pi?eiro, executive director of Florida Access Network, said during a June press conference that the month after the Dobbs decision ended federal abortion rights, the fund received $200,000 in individual donations — but after the state supreme court decision in April 2024 reduced the state’s abortion ban from 15 gestational weeks to six weeks, the fund received just $40,000 in donations.
“That is a stark difference, and it has everything to do with donors feeling burnt out,” Loraine Pi?eiro said.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America told States Newsroom it is meeting its fundraising goals, but the organization’s local health centers and regional affiliates are struggling to provide care in the current climate.
Nicole Clegg, interim CEO of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, told States Newsroom the affiliate has always been under-resourced and under-reimbursed for the care it provides, which includes birth control, testing for sexually transmitted diseases and routine gynecological care in addition to abortion services. But now that the region, which includes Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire, is taking on more patients from states with abortion bans, it is reaching a tipping point.
“The services we provide are just not valued by the insurance industry, or Medicaid and Medicare — they have always been poorly reimbursed,” Clegg said. “Once costs really started to skyrocket, the margin we were operating with disappeared.”
According to an analysis of health care spending and costs by KFF, health spending tripled between the year 2000 and 2022, from $1.4 trillion to $4.5 trillion. The pandemic accelerated that spending, but the analysis also said the aging population of the U.S., rising rates of chronic conditions, inflation, and expansions of insurance coverage have also driven up costs.
A bill that would have provided nearly $3.4 million to Maine’s family planning centers got caught in legislative wrangling that affected many appropriations bills at the end of the session.
Unlike other safety net providers, we are trying to navigate these business challenges on top of the unprecedented political attacks focused on providers of abortion care and gender-affirming care.
– Lisa Humes-Schulz, vice president of policy and communications, Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates
In New Hampshire, which allows abortions until 24 weeks of pregnancy, the affiliate had nearly secured a multi-year grant of more than $2 million total, with the support of Republican Gov. Chris Sununu. However, Clegg said that when the grant went before an executive council for final approval in 2023, the members struck it down, saying they didn’t want taxpayer dollars to fund abortions. Both led to the projected $8.6 million shortfall over the next three years.
“The executive council has become increasingly hostile to Planned Parenthood,” Clegg said.
Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, which includes northwestern states as well as Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana and Kentucky, also said it is facing financial challenges that put access to care at risk. Lisa Humes-Schulz, vice president of policy and communications for Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates, said in a statement that the affiliate is facing the same health care cost challenges, an underfunded federal family planning program, workforce shortages and rising labor costs. Great Northwest includes Idaho, where there is a near-total abortion ban and which was at the center of a recent U.S. Supreme Court case over whether emergency room physicians could be prosecuted under the state law for providing an abortion in the case of a medical emergency. The affiliate’s clinics in Washington have seen an influx of patients from Idaho as a result of the abortion ban over the past two years, including some emergency patients that were airlifted out of Idaho.
“Unlike other safety net providers, we are trying to navigate these business challenges on top of the unprecedented political attacks focused on providers of abortion care and gender-affirming care,” Humes-Schulz said.
For Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, financial struggles have already prompted a change in care. After the state legislature failed to increase Medicaid reimbursement rates for medication abortion, the affiliate said it implemented executive pay cuts, consolidated job functions and closed small health centers to make up deficits. More than half of the patients that visit Planned Parenthood centers rely on Medicaid.
But it took another step in temporarily stopping abortions at 20 or more weeks starting Sept. 3 because it can’t afford to cover the vendor costs for anesthesia. Only one Planned Parenthood location in New York City will offer deep sedation and abortions at 20 or more weeks for now.
The struggles also extend to organizations that provide more basic infrastructure for abortion clinics, such as the Abortion Care Network, which started a campaign called Keep Our Clinics to raise funds for independent abortion clinics. Independent clinics make up 55% of abortion providers, according to the network, while Planned Parenthood comprises 41%, and the remaining 4% occur at physicians’ offices and hospitals. The vast majority of clinics offering abortion care after 22 weeks — about 86% — are also independent.
Erin Grant, co-executive director of the Abortion Care Network, told States Newsroom the organization’s mission is to provide grant funding for independent clinics to support infrastructure needs — such as supplies, equipment, building repair, security, and litigation support — rather than patient care. The network has supported 32 clinics, and gave out $700,000 to providers in recent months.
But for the network too, donations are down by one-third. The full amount of donations to the Keep Our Clinics campaign goes to clinic members, and the organization granted nearly $5 million to clinics in 2022, but only $3.4 million in 2023. The requests for support did not go down during that time, but donations did.
Grant said it’s important to support the infrastructure of independent abortion clinics because once they close, it is extremely difficult to work through the bureaucratic process again to reopen them. In areas with newly instituted six-week abortion bans, such as Florida, Iowa and South Carolina, more clinics have closed their doors.
“We are in times where ‘unprecedented’ is not even the word anymore, and there is so much happening that calls for our attention. … There’s a need in this moment for us to hold multiple crises across communities,” Grant said. “… This isn’t something we get to say we did as an immediate need, because there’s decades of work ahead to build the actual infrastructure to have health care access, let alone abortion access in this country.”
During a June press call, several leaders of state abortion funds discussed funding struggles. Oriaku Njoku, executive director of the National Network of Abortion Funds, said the funds provided more than $36 million in abortion funding and $10 million in logistical support in 2023.
“This is not the same movement that it was five years ago, let alone 50 years ago, and yet we’re still operating and funding as if it were the same issue as it was before,” Njoku said.
There are nine clinics in Ohio, where voters affirmed their desire to keep access to abortion in 2023, but it is surrounded by three states with near-total bans — Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia. Lexis Dotson-Dufault, executive director of the Abortion Fund of Ohio, said during the press conference that her organization averaged about 100 patients per month in 2022, but now it averages more than 500.
“While abortion funds have a huge increase in need, we are not seeing a huge increase in money coming in to support this need,” Dotson-Dufault said.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the national organization, did not directly address whether it would provide more support to the affiliates facing significant financial troubles.
“While issues around funding are a concern, it is important to note that the reproductive health care ecosystem is straining under the weight of the post-Dobbs crisis,” a Planned Parenthood spokesperson said in a statement. “PPFA is working to support affiliates as they take action to adapt and continue to provide care.”
The organization’s comments came a few days after 41 abortion funds from around the country signed on to an op-ed in The Nation saying there is a disconnect between the most visible national reproductive rights organizations, like Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation, and grassroots groups working to directly support those who need care. The op-ed called out the National Abortion Federation for cutting back its financial assistance program in July, from 50% of the cost of seeking care to 30%. Signers included the Abortion Fund of Ohio and the Florida Access Network.
Brittany Fonteno, CEO and president of the National Abortion Federation, called the change an “incredibly heartbreaking and difficult” decision that had to be made despite an “incredible and generous budget” that is the largest it has ever been. She said that in the first half of this year, NAF was funding at $6 million per month for abortion care, and then upwards of $200,000 per month in patient assistance funds to help with associated travel costs. These patient assistance funds are completely funded by foundation and individual donors, Fonteno said, noting that individual donations dropped nearly 40% in 2023 from the previous year after the Dobbs decision leaked.
In 2023, NAF said it funded 106,865 people with an average amount of $519 per patient. So far in 2024, the hotline has funded 66,330 people at an average of $541 per patient.
“We’re truly in a public health emergency right now, and unfortunately, we just can’t keep pace with the patient need,” Fonteno told States Newsroom. “We had to make this decision in order to make sure that we could stretch our funds and make sure that we could help as many people as possible for the rest of this year. If we hadn’t made this decision, then we would have run out of funding in the fall.”
The changes include no longer making exceptions for those in later stages of pregnancy who face higher costs — sometimes as much as $10,000, Fonteno said — because the procedure costs more or they have to travel further to find a clinic that can provide it. That “exception budget,” which was also used for patients facing extreme circumstances like intimate partner violence, will not exist for the remainder of the year, according to Fonteno.
“Of course, we’re working incredibly hard to try to fundraise, to try to get the word out and bring awareness to this issue. And if we’re able to fundraise, we may be able to consider increasing the funding that we’re able to do,” she said.
Clegg, interim CEO of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, said the problems will only get exponentially worse if the presidential election in November breaks for Republicans over Democrats. Project 2025, the blueprint document produced by the Heritage Foundation for the next Republican presidential administration to follow, calls for the federal government to prohibit Planned Parenthood from receiving any Medicaid funds (for non-abortion reproductive health services; federal funding of abortion is currently prohibited) and issue guidance to states that says they are free to defund Planned Parenthood in their state Medicaid plans as well.
Instead, it calls for the funding to be redirected to “health centers that provide real health care for women.” The anti-abortion organizations involved in crafting the document, such as Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, often promote funding for crisis pregnancy centers, which counsel pregnant patients against abortion and are known to spread misinformation about the procedure. A recent analysis from reproductive rights advocacy group Equity Forward showed nearly $490 million was allocated in 23 state budgets over the past two years for crisis pregnancy centers, most of which were in the same states that restrict abortion access.
“It’s not just making sure the public understands that we need them to engage and partner with us to make sure we can keep providing the care; it’s also having them connect the dots to the November election and understand that who they vote for, who they put in office is going to determine our future,” Clegg said.
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