With Florida set to impose a six-week ban on abortions as early as May 1 and a near-total ban set to go into effect soon after in Arizona, abortion fund officials say they won’t be able to meet increased demand for help funding travel out of state — a development that could lead to more people continuing unwanted pregnancies.
“I don’t think people fully understand the implications,” said Stephanie Lorraine Pinheiro, executive director of the Florida Access Network, one of the Sunshine State’s abortion funds. These non-profit organizations help pregnant people cover the costs of termination of pregnancy. “We think about the collateral damage. People’s lives will be affected.
A single state ban would strain the nation’s fragile network of abortion funds. But together, the two laws may be too much to bear. After a spike in June 2022, a temporary result of the Supreme Court’s unpopular decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and end federal abortion rights, donations to these funds have steadily declined.
In Florida, representatives of the state’s abortion funds said they are already at their limits. Now they fear the six-week ban will stretch them even further. More than 80,000 abortions were performed in the state last year, according to the state health department.
About 11,500 abortions were performed in Arizona in 2022, the most recent year for which complete data is available from the state health department. Although a smaller number, officials at Arizona’s only abortion fund say they won’t be able to support sending that many people across state lines.
“Where are people going to find the resources to pay for these abortions to go out of state?” asked Eloisa Lopez, executive director of the Arizona Abortion Fund. “It wouldn’t be possible for humans.”
The regional implications in the south are particularly significant. In Florida, home to more than 60 clinics, abortions are currently legal until the 15th week of pregnancy — less permissive than Roe had guaranteed, but still the most generous of any of the state’s neighbors. Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia have almost completely banned the procedure. It is legal up to six weeks into pregnancy in Georgia and South Carolina and up to 12 weeks in North Carolina. As a result, pregnant people are flooding into clinics in the Sunshine State, which has seen one of the biggest increases in the procedure since Roe fell.
Arizona never became the same kind of regional destination — it had also previously imposed a 15-week limit, but that law was stricter than that of surrounding states. Still, doctors there said they’ve also seen out-of-state patients in the post-Roe landscape, especially people from Texas who couldn’t get an earlier appointment in a state closer to home.
Despite the bans that went into effect after Roe v. Wade was overturned, the number of abortions performed has held steady, multiple analyzes show — a result of patients being able to order abortion pills by mail or travel relatively short distances across state lines. limits of care.
But abortion laws in Florida and Arizona could undermine that. Abortion fund representatives in both states said they do not cover costs for people ordering abortion drugs by mail from another state, citing potential legal risk. And the journey they sustain is likely to become longer and more expensive.
In Florida, doctors are preparing to send patients to Virginia, the last state in the South to allow second-trimester abortions, as well as Washington, D.C. and Illinois. Arizona residents will have to travel to several states — Nevada, Colorado, California and New Mexico — even though clinics are already under siege from an increase in patients from states like Texas and Oklahoma.
In Arizona, Lopez estimated that an out-of-state trip could cost patients between $1,500 and $2,000. Spending that much money for every Arizonan who might need financial support to leave the state is simply not possible, she said.
And as more patients travel longer distances — trips that may require more expensive plane tickets, extra gas or more hotel nights — abortion fund representatives worry their travel budgets won’t stretch as far. , as ever.
“As more people have to travel longer distances, the money that is set aside for travel will be spent much sooner,” Lorraine Piniero said.
Her fund has already scaled back operations. Florida Access Network, used to fund people who traveled to Florida for the procedure; in response to increasing financial pressures, it now funds only Florida residents who travel for care. It’s still a substantial task: in 2023, the fund spent $400,000 to support 1,500 people.
Officials from other funds said they likely won’t be able to help everyone who calls for help. “It’s absolutely possible that our call volume will get to the point where we have to be really, really tight with how much we can fund each caller or potentially have to shut down our line periodically,” said Tampa board member McKenna Kelly Bay Abortion Fund. “It doesn’t look very promising so far.”
Even organizations in cities expecting an influx of abortion patients — such as Chicago and Washington, D.C., now among the closest legal options for Florida residents — say they don’t believe they will be able to meet the increased demand.
“We haven’t turned away a single caller since the summer of 2019 — almost five years,” said Megan Jayifo, executive director of the Chicago Abortion Fund. “It pushes us to the brink.”
