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

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

The draft ruling, which was published by Politico on Monday evening, sparked a frenzy of giving by Americans to abortion clinics, teams that help people pay for abortions and organizations seeking to protect abortion access.

Beneficiaries included nationwide organizations with large working budgets as well as small, impartial clinics and regional teams that are typically overlooked.

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NARAL Professional-Selection 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 information broke in comparison with the day earlier than, spokesperson Kristin Ford stated. Fifty-one percent 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 largest wave of donations over that length of time that the affiliation had ever obtained.

The money will go on to the clinics and help them stay open to supply reproductive health providers even if state laws prohibit them from offering abortions, the community's Executive

Director Nikki Madsen said.

"We will continue to be combating in the states to bring back abortion access," Madsen mentioned. "We have to preserve these clinics open in that interim."

Advocates both for and in opposition to abortion rights say they are going to use the Supreme Courtroom's ruling, expected by the tip of June, to mobilize voters for the 2022 midterm elections. Nationwide anti-abortion groups Susan B. Anthony Checklist and March for Life didn't immediately 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 offers money to the state's clinics to support patients' procedures, had greater than 8,000 donors contribute greater than $50,000 on Tuesday, the fund's Treasurer Janice Massey said.

On Tuesday night, Oklahoma enacted a regulation banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, shutting down nearly all abortion companies in the state. learn extra

"That is certainly the biggest surge (in donations) I've seen in the 13 years I've been doing this work," Massey stated.

The Kentucky Health Justice Community, another abortion fund, obtained more than 1,000 donations with a mean value of $50 since Monday night, Operations Director Ashley Jacobs mentioned on Wednesday. When a Kentucky law suspended in-state abortion companies for eight days in April, the network assisted patients traveling to Ohio and Indiana for abortions.

Donors additionally gave to organizations in areas that could see an influx of sufferers searching for abortions as a result of local laws shield abortion rights.

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

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

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