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

Could 4 (Reuters) - Donations have flooded into abortion clinics and abortion-rights advocacy groups 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 resolution.

The draft ruling, which was published by Politico on Monday night, sparked a frenzy of giving by People to abortion clinics, groups that assist individuals pay for abortions and organizations searching for to protect abortion access.

Beneficiaries included national organizations with giant operating budgets in addition to small, independent clinics and regional groups which can be usually missed.

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NARAL Pro-Alternative America, a nonprofit that acquired $12.9 million in donations in fiscal year 2021, noticed a 1,403% increase in donations within the 24 hours after the news broke compared to the day before, spokesperson Kristin Ford stated. Fifty-one % of donors were giving for the first time.

Between Monday night time and noon Wednesday, greater than 4,000 donors gave more than $100,000 to the Abortion Care Network, a nationwide affiliation of 150 independent U.S. abortion clinics. That was the most important wave of donations over that size of time that the association had ever obtained.

The money will go on to the clinics and assist them keep open to supply reproductive health services even if state legal guidelines prohibit them from providing abortions, the community's Executive

Director Nikki Madsen said.

"We will continue to be fighting within the states to carry again abortion entry," Madsen stated. "We have to hold those clinics open in that interim."

Advocates both for and in opposition to abortion rights say they'll use the Supreme Court's ruling, anticipated by the tip of June, to mobilize voters for the 2022 midterm elections. National anti-abortion groups Susan B. Anthony List and March for Life didn't immediately reply to inquiries about donations.

Planned Parenthood and Emily's Checklist, teams that advocate for reproductive rights, additionally didn't immediately respond.

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

On Tuesday night time, Oklahoma enacted a law banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, shutting down almost all abortion companies in the state. learn more

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

Donors also gave to organizations in areas that could see an inflow of patients looking for abortions as a result of native legal guidelines protect abortion rights.

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

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

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Rules.