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

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

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

Beneficiaries included nationwide organizations with massive operating budgets in addition to small, independent clinics and regional teams which can be often overlooked.

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NARAL Professional-Alternative America, a nonprofit that received $12.9 million in donations in fiscal yr 2021, noticed a 1,403% increase in donations within the 24 hours after the news broke in comparison with the day before, spokesperson Kristin Ford said. Fifty-one % of donors have 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 Community, a national association of 150 impartial U.S. abortion clinics. That was the most important wave of donations over that length of time that the affiliation had ever acquired.

The money will go on to the clinics and help them keep open to supply reproductive health services even when state laws prohibit them from providing abortions, the community's Executive

Director Nikki Madsen stated.

"We will proceed to be combating in the states to bring again abortion entry," Madsen said. "We have to maintain these clinics open in that interim."

Advocates each for and in opposition to abortion rights say they are going to use the Supreme Court'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 did not immediately respond to inquiries about donations.

Deliberate Parenthood and Emily's Checklist, groups that advocate for reproductive rights, also did not immediately respond.

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

On Tuesday night time, Oklahoma enacted a regulation banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, shutting down nearly all abortion providers within the state. read more

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

The Kentucky Well being Justice Network, one other abortion fund, obtained greater than 1,000 donations with an average value of $50 since Monday night time, Operations Director Ashley Jacobs said on Wednesday. When a Kentucky law suspended in-state abortion providers for eight days in April, the network assisted patients touring to Ohio and Indiana for abortions.

Donors also gave to organizations in areas that might see an inflow of sufferers searching for abortions as a result of native laws shield abortion rights.

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

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

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