Abortion funds that help people cover the costs of getting the procedure are struggling with money as the waves of donations that followed the end of Roe v. Wade have begun to dry up.
It’s led some of the independent organizations — which help cover expenses for abortions and associated costs, such as transportation, child care, and lodging — to scale back or even pause operations.
After the Dobbs decision in June 2022, many funds received large donations from Americans outraged at seeing the right to an abortion stripped away.
The National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF), which comprises 100 funds across the country, said its members disbursed close to $37 million to about 103,000 people from July 1, 2022, to June 30. That was an 88 percent increase in spending compared to the year before.
People giving money were so angry at the time that the gifts were described as “rage” donations.
But as the issue has faded from headlines, donations have too, even as demand for help and the costs for helping individual people have skyrocketed.
Probably just that it’s getting old. When the issue was new and in everyone’s minds, people donated. Now that time has moved on, people are back to the grind of daily life and it slips from their minds.
Humans as a whole tend to follow the monkey brain which always wants new and exciting. Once something is old, people quickly get over it.