We had a fantastic time raising both money and awareness with Jezebel at our Dirty Dancing screening earlier this week.  Thank you to Irin Carmon for organizing the event and to Cinema Village for hosting us! The event was so fantastic that several outlets wrote about it:

• Wall Street Journal: Do Dirty Dancing and Thelma & Louisa Still Matter?
• Village Voice: Eleanor Bergstein, Screenwriter, Talks Dirty Dancing
• Feministe: I Had The Time of My Life–Dirty Dancing, Remakes, and Battles We’re Still Fighting
• Tablet Magazine: Is ‘Dirty Dancing’ the Most Jewish Film Ever?
• Jezebel: How To Say “Nobody Puts Baby In A Corner” In German (with video clips!)

A Dirty Dancing Fundraiser for NYAAF!

On Monday, August 8, NYAAF is is teaming up with the fab blog Jezebel to host a benefit screening of the timeless classic Dirty Dancing!

Best of all, screenwriter and producer Eleanor Bergstein will make a rare appearance for a Q&A. Watermelons optional.

Note: CHANGE OF VENUE. Due to possible thunderstorms, the event will be held at Cinema Village, 22 East 12 St between University and 5th.

Here’s what you have to do to come:

• Go here and donate $25 (more if you like) to NYAAF.
• Email dirty@jezebel.com to confirm your spot on the list.
• We have very limited capacity and strongly encourage buying tickets in advance. And anyway, aren’t you scared of closing out of this post and never feeling the rest of your whole life the way you’ll feel when you’re watching this movie for a good cause?Rooftop Screening Of Dirty Dancing

Two of our board members attended the National Network of Abortion Funds National Organizing Summit and had the pleasure of mingling with and learning from dozens of other passionate abortion fund volunteers and activists. We were also honored to receive this award from the Network, recognizing NYAAF as the fund that raised the most money during our bowl-a-thon in May.

Thanks to our board members, dedicated volunteers, and YOU for helping us raise over $70,000 to help women and girls access safe abortion services in New York State.

We’re lacing up our bowling shoes for April 17 (in JUST ONE MONTH!) — please join us for the Second Annual National Bowl-a-Thon for Abortion Access! In the past weeks and months wev’e faced many attacks on our reproductive freedom. And they keep on coming at us. Now more than ever, we need you to join us in fighting back!

Because when the going gets tough, the tough GO BALLS OUT!

The bowl-a-thon is an exciting opportunity to raise money for NYAAF and also to have a great time with activists in New York City. Last year hundreds of teams from around the country raised over $175,000 for abortion access—and this year we’re aiming even higher!

How does it work? Easy! First, go to NYAAF’s bowl-a-thon page. Next, recruit a few friends and register your dream team: a few great team names already registered are Spare Ribs, the Stiff Boehners, and The Bowled and the Beautiful. You’re ready to start making reproductive rights a reality for women in your state!

Haven’t bowled since high school? Or EVER? Not a problem! The bowl-a-thon is about access, not prowess. There’s no pin count: the goal is to help women and girls with the resources they need to make the right decision for their lives. And it’s the most fun you’ll ever have in rented shoes!

Want to support this grassroots event but you’re too busy to bowl? Donate to one of the NYAAF teams or to an individual!

Together, we’ll strike down barriers to abortion access.

Dear NYAAF Supporter,

While the New York Abortion Access Fund (NYAAF) works to help women access safe abortion care, anti-choice forces are hard at work. You’ve heard about Congress voting to defund Planned Parenthood and Title X. You’ve heard about states pledging not to cover abortion in the upcoming insurance exchanges. You may not have heard how these legislative attacks can affect real women’s ability to access abortion care.

NYAAF is critically low on funds and facing the highest need in our 10-year history. Today, many women and families are struggling to make ends meet. Many have lost work and health insurance. This, coupled with increasingly restrictive abortion regulations in states across the country, means that more women than ever are coming to New York to access safe abortion care. 100% of your tax-deductible donation will go to help women access the reproductive health care they need. You can donate here. These are some of the women that your donations have already helped.

Angela* is a young woman just beginning college, with the dream of becoming a journalist. Her health plan did not include abortion coverage and she reached out to NYAAF when she discovered she was a few weeks pregnant. She contributed to her procedure with funds saved from her work-study program and NYAAF covered the remaining cost.

Stella* was excited to have her second child. At 28 weeks, she learned that her pregnancy had a fatal fetal abnormality. Her insurance covered abortion, but only until 24 weeks. She called NYAAF to help her reach a clinic in Colorado for a safe termination.

Melissa’s* husband had just lost his job when she discovered she was pregnant. With no health care coverage, two small children to care for and unreliable access to housing, she came to NYAAF looking for assistance. She made the decision based on what she and her husband felt was best for their family and with your support, NYAAF was able to help her.

These women needed NYAAF’s help, and thanks to your generous contributions, they had safe abortion procedures. With your ongoing support, we hope to help as many women as possible, but the calls for our help have been consistently higher than ever before. At the current rate, we will be out of funds within the next few months, and possibly even weeks. Your donation of $25, $50 or $100 will help women afford the safe abortion care they need. Click here to help. On our donation page you can even set up a recurring donation, to ensure that your support of NYAAF remains as constant as your commitment to women’s rights.

Thanks for all your support, and  behalf the women we serve, we thank you for your commitment to reproductive justice for all.

The NYAAF Board of Directors
*Names have been changed.

It has been a tough week for reproductive justice.

First, fresh from repealing health care for many vulnerable Americans, House Republicans introduced one of the most restrictive abortion bans we have ever seen. And now, anti-choice advocates have raised a firestorm over the case of Kermit Gosnell, a doctor in Philadelphia accused of gruesome crimes against pregnant women, including several illegal late term abortions.

Michelle Goldberg writes eloquently about how the Gosnell case demonstrates that what women need is safe access to abortions, not more restrictions. She writes:

Gosnell’s clinic was in no way representative of most abortion facilities, which is why the country’s largest organization of abortion providers, the National Abortion Federation, refused him membership and testified against him to the grand jury. In fact, Gosnell’s crimes only underline the need for all women to have access to affordable and genuinely safe providers. His patients subjected themselves to terrible abuses because that’s what women will do when they’re desperate and they don’t see other options….

No woman would subject herself to such a place if she thought she had somewhere else to go. Forty-one-year-old Karnamaya Mongar, who died after being given an overdose of sedatives at the clinic, was a refugee who had recently arrived in the U.S. from a resettlement camp in Nepal. She couldn’t read English and may not have had any idea how to find a decent clinic. Minors went to Gosnell’s clinic—it was the one place they could skirt state law and get abortions without parental consent. Gosnell performed illegal late-term abortions on women who should have been cared for months earlier.

NYAAF works day-in and day-out to help women get the care they need so that they don’t have to resort to unsafe and dangerous places. Help us help them. Click here to donate.

Celebrate the anniversary of the landmark abortion decision Roe v. Wade with the most badass feminists of NYC. It’s pay what you can at the door starting at $10, although no one will be turned away for inability to pay. Who’ll be there?

Shelby Knox & Steph Herold / Jessica Valenti / Lynn Harris / Sady Doyle / Bloggers from Feministing & Jezebel / The Women’s Media Center / Paradigm Shift /NARAL Pro-Choice New York / Planned Pa…renthood of New York City / National Organization for Women (NOW) – New York State Young Feminist Task Force / Women’s eNews/ & MORE!

Door prizes include fabulous books from the authors above, NOW membership, a Words of Choice DVD, sweet t-shirts & more!

All the proceeds benefit the New York Abortion Access Fund, a volunteer-run, 501c3 non-profit organization that provides financial assistance to low-income women in New York State who cannot afford to pay for an abortion. For more info about NYAAF: http://www.nyaaf.org/

RSVP HERE.

Can’t come? You can still make a donation to NYAAF: http://bit.ly/kENWT

Dear Friends of NYAAF:

We are asking for your help.

The New York Abortion Access Fund (NYAAF) granted more than $60,000 to health clinics over the past year, helping 122 women pay for abortions they could not otherwise afford. This is more than twice the number we were able to support the year before.

Demand for our services continues to rise as the bleak economy takes a toll on low-income women and their families. Now more than ever, we need your support to fill the gap for women who would otherwise fall through the cracks—those too broke to pay for necessary healthcare, but who make just enough that they do not qualify for public assistance.

Earlier this year, NYAAF received a call from a young woman named Allison. Allison lives in the Western United States and is uninsured. Because of a preexisting medical condition, she needed to receive her abortion in a clinical setting under general anesthesia. The cost in New York was much lower than anything she could find near her home. So she planned to drive across the country with her elderly stepfather, a bag of white bread and a tub of peanut butter. After several phone calls, we found a clinic closer to her home and negotiated a price that she could afford.

Another call came from Doug, a young man in his early twenties trying to find help for his girlfriend. Calls from men are rare, but this young man clearly saw the situation as one that affected him as much as his partner. We helped him locate a clinic and together they were able to raise $800 from friends and family. NYAAF kicked in the final $400.

The women NYAAF supports are as diverse as our country. They are African American, Latina and white and, this past year, ranged from 11 to 43 years of age. Forty percent already had children. They are united by the fact that, while they live in a country where abortion is legal and safe, cost nearly prevented them from accessing services.

NYAAF works to break down this barrier by helping women pay for abortions and matching them to convenient and affordable services. We thank you for your past support and invite you to ensure that abortion remains safe, legal, accessible and funded. One-hundred percent of your tax-deductible donation directly supports low-income women’s abortions.

You can donate via Causes on Facebook or by clicking the “donate now” button on www.nyaaf.org. Again, your help is greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

NYAAF Board of Directors

Dear supporters,

This week the New York Abortion Access Fund dipped below $1000, less than our average weekly grant total. To replenish the fund and keep our services operating, we are calling an emergency fundraiser for next Thursday, September 16th. Please join us from 6-9pm at Destination Bar for an evening of discounted cocktails, a raffle and silent auction in support of the New York Abortion Access Fund. Please spread the word!

Suggested donation: $20 (or more if you can afford it).

Drink specials! Raffle! Silent Auction!

Abortion should be safe, legal and FUNDED! Pass it on!

Can’t come but support the cause? Donate anyway! Just click on the button on the right. We need your support!

Dear friends,

Our fund is going broke and we need your help to replenish it. This April, the New York Abortion Access Fund raised over $20,000 during the first-ever National Abortion Access Bowlathon. We have already given out ALL of that money to help women pay for abortions they needed but could not afford. To contribute, please click on the Network for Good link on the right.

NYAAF is pledging money at a faster rate than ever before. Why? Two reasons:

First, over the past year our visibility as a fund has increased thanks to your help in promoting our services, word-of-mouth referrals from women we have helped, an increase in the number of partner clinics who call us when they have a patient in need, and a ramped up online presence via Facebook, Twitter and our website.

Second, a recent wave of extremely expensive cases has nearly wiped us out. More and more women are contacting us for help in paying for extremely costly later-term procedures. These women come to us with heartbreaking stories of the obstacles they have faced in both preventing an unplanned pregnancy in the first place and then obtaining an abortion right away.

Why are these women waiting so long to get abortions? At NYAAF, we are often asked this question. The women we help give a range of answers. Some do not realize they are pregnant right away. Some young women say they were afraid to tell their parents or didn’t know where to go for help.

But the most common reason we hear is MONEY. The women we serve often come to us from other states with more restrictive abortion policies. By the time they reach New York, they have already spent considerable time and energy fundraising for their trip and procedure by saving up, borrowing from friends and family and asking for advances on paychecks. In the meantime, the longer a women spends raising the funds to pay for her procedure, the more expensive that procedure becomes.

Please help us help women obtain earlier, less expensive abortions. When our fund is flush, NYAAF is able to pledge 100% of the money a woman needs to confirm an appointment so that she can stop fundraising and obtain an abortion right away. When we are broke, as we are now, we are forced to make smaller pledges. We try to make up the balance by referring women to all known sources of funding, helping them to negotiate payment plans with clinics and look into paying for the procedure with a credit card. This kind of negotiating is not only costly for the woman, but also time consuming for our all-volunteer board thus limiting the number of women we can help.

By donating today, you can help break down the barriers preventing women from obtaining timely, cost-effective abortions and, in turn, help us to be able to serve a greater number of women. All contributions are tax deductible and 100% of your donation will go DIRECTLY toward paying for a women’s abortion. We are a tiny, tightly budgeted 501c3. All operating costs are covered out of pocket by the NYAAF board.

At current rates, we will run out of money by the end of the month. Please help us stay afloat.

Sincerely,

The board of the New York Abortion Access Fund (NYAAF)

Nyaaf.org
Causes.org/nyaaf
Twitter.com/nyaaf