Laurie Bertram Roberts doesn’t mince words: She thinks that Mississippi is going to be a “hellscape” if – or “when” – the United States Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that has constitutionally guaranteed a person’s right to abortion since.
“Not only am I going to be in a no-abortion state, I have six daughters of reproductive age,” ranging from 27 years old to 18 years old, she told Spectrum News. “I’m honestly thinking a lot about what it means for them to stay here, even with the knowledge and resources we have … it isn’t even fair to put this on them.”
Roberts is the executive director of the Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund, an organization that provides assistance, support, and funding for people seeking abortions in her home state. MRFF is one of dozens of funds across the U.S. that offer help — supplies, funding, information, and even travel and lodging support — to people seeking abortions.
And on the night that the draft opinion, first published by POLITICO — which Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed was authentic, but says is not the court’s final decision — was leaked, people sought ways to support funds like hers.
And they did — in tremendous volumes.
The website of the National Network of Abortion Funds, which connects member funds from across the country for support, crashed from volume of traffic it faced. Within a few days of the leak, NAFF’s annual Fund-A-Thon blew past its $1.5 million goal, to $1.8 million and climbing.
Roberts’ MRFF received $50,000 overnight, raising 6% of the fund’s annual budget in less than a day.
“We were worried if we were going to [meet] it this year,” she said.
The work, Roberts said, is in helping to fund the entire cost of a person’s abortion — about $600, she said — as well as help with travel and child care.
“That’s for people who are getting procedures in state. Now think about what happens when someone has to go to Illinois, or has to go to another state that has a freaking waiting period,” Roberts aid. “I can’t even explain how many people we’ve had to that needed to go out of state because they were further along — people who have never flown.”
Abortion, she said, isn’t limited to any one situation or stereotypical caste of people.
Sarah Tarver-Wahlquist, an organizer with Tucson Abortion Support Collective, in Tucson, Ariz., agrees.
“Most people who get abortions are already parents. They’re looking out for their kids…they’re doing so much work to enact this agency for their lives,” Tarver-Wahlquist said. “They’re really working their asses off.”
That decision, she said, shouldn’t be reduced to whether or not a person is seeking an abortion.
“A big part of the reproductive justice framework is not merely saying everyone who wants to have an abortion should be able to get one, but everyone who wants to have that baby should have that baby, and know they have secure housing, and access to food and health care. We want people to make those choices safely, in all directions.”
Which is the point of these funds: ensuring that people can feel like they have a choice.
“Something about abortion funding is that it’s the most direct way to help increase abortion access. A little bit goes a long way — our pledges range between $200 to $300 on average. That’s what helps them get their procedure or not,” Tarver-Wahlquist said.
TASC’s goal is to meet people where they are, whether it’s childcare, transportation to a clinic, a phone number to call, or even just a conversation.
But the key, Tarver-Wahlquist said, is for people to know that there’s no need to reinvent the wheel — that these funds already exist, all over the country, and they’re ready to help. Local funds are key for supporting people who only feel comfortable turning to people they know.
“One thing to stress: We’ll still be here. People who need this will still be here,” Roberts said.
Roberts also offered her “thanks” to Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the leaked majority opinion, “for his dedication to abortion funding,” adding: “We couldn’t have done it without him.”
“Without his very carefully crafted words, and his sounding the alarm on the assault of abortion rights, we could not have done the fundraising we did overnight,” she added. “That’s the biggest bow I can put on this pile of BS we were given.”
