We take care of each other: The vital role of abortion funds in states with restricted access

Abortion care in the United States has never been accessible to all, even with federal and state legal protections in place. Long before the Supreme Court opinion issued in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization on June 24, 2022, people experienced barriers to abortion due to the costs of accessing an abortion and logistical burdens such as distance and time to reach clinical care. Communities nationwide have been working to address these healthcare access barriers through abortion funds, which provide people with material resources to cover abortion-related expenses, including appointments, travel and accommodations, childcare, and more.

Restricted access to abortion care disproportionately harms people who are Black, Brown, and Indigenous; young, especially minors; trans and gender expansive; migrants and those who are undocumented; in addition to people experiencing financial hardship and living in rural areas, particularly in the South and Midwest. Abortion funds in these regions have been working to meet the needs of their communities as state governments and other anti-abortion actors have increased attacks on abortion. In the Midwest, abortion funds have been helping to make abortion a real option for residents in Indiana—a state with one of the country’s most restrictive abortion policy contexts pre-Dobbs that has since introduced and enacted a total abortion ban with limited exceptions. There is a gap in research about the role of abortion funds in people’s experiences seeking care in states with limited abortion access.

To address this gap, Ibis Reproductive Health, in partnership with the Indiana University School of Medicine, All-Options’ Hoosier Abortion Fund (HAF), the Chicago Abortion Fund (CAF), and Kentucky Health Justice Network (KHJN), conducted the Hoosier Abortion Access Study. Through this mixed-methods study, we measured the experiences of over 400 Hoosiers trying to get abortions between June 2021 and June 2022, before the Supreme Court Dobbs decision that removed federal protections for abortion. This publication details how abortion funds connected Hoosiers who needed financial and practical support with the resources to overcome access barriers and policy restrictions so that they could obtain abortion care.