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

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

The draft ruling, which was printed by Politico on Monday night, sparked a frenzy of giving by People to abortion clinics, teams that help individuals pay for abortions and organizations looking for to protect abortion entry.

Beneficiaries included nationwide organizations with giant working budgets in addition to small, independent clinics and regional groups which are typically ignored.

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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 within the 24 hours after the news broke compared to the day earlier than, spokesperson Kristin Ford mentioned. Fifty-one percent of donors had been giving for the first time.

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

The money will go on to the clinics and assist them keep open to offer reproductive health providers even when state legal guidelines prohibit them from providing abortions, the network's Executive

Director Nikki Madsen said.

"We're going to proceed to be fighting in the states to deliver back abortion entry," Madsen stated. "We have to hold these clinics open in that interim."

Advocates both for and towards abortion rights say they may use the Supreme Court docket's ruling, anticipated by the top of June, to mobilize voters for the 2022 midterm elections. National anti-abortion groups Susan B. Anthony Listing and March for Life didn't immediately respond to inquiries about donations.

Planned Parenthood and Emily's Listing, teams that advocate for reproductive rights, also did not instantly reply.

The Roe Fund, an abortion fund in Oklahoma that provides cash to the state's clinics to help patients' procedures, had more 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 law banning abortions after six weeks of being pregnant, shutting down almost all abortion providers within the state. read extra

"That is actually the most important surge (in donations) I've seen in the 13 years I've been doing this work," Massey said.

The Kentucky Well being Justice Community, one other abortion fund, received greater than 1,000 donations with a median 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 traveling to Ohio and Indiana for abortions.

Donors also gave to organizations in areas that could see an influx of sufferers in search of abortions because 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, obtained more than $105,000 in donations between Monday evening and Wednesday morning, spokesperson Devin Simpson mentioned.

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

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