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

Dear friends and supporters,

It has been a tough year for the New York Abortion Access Fund (NYAAF). The nationwide economic downturn and upsurge in unemployed and uninsured Americans have lead to a rise in demand for our services. More and more we are getting calls not just from clinics, but directly from women asking for help to pay for an abortion.

This increase in the numbers and types of requests we receive means we are reaching a wider population of women and families than ever before. It also requires more time and effort. Our all-volunteer board is stretched thin responding to requests for funding, referring women to clinics that can serve them and negotiating with those clinics to provide the most timely and affordable services possible.

The women NYAAF serves are ones who might otherwise slip through the cracks, including those who make just a little too much to qualify for public assistance, who do not qualify due to immigration status, who live in states that do not help cover the cost of abortion, or who face emergency situations that do not leave them enough time to apply for government help.

The emergencies, of course, are the most expensive. Last month, we helped a fifteen-year-old rape victim pay for a procedure that required hospital treatment. Arranging for her care took more than ten phone calls, countless emails and hours of negotiation. We contacted every known source of abortion funding for which this young woman qualified and every time heard the same message: we are out of money, please call back later. In the end, the doctor involved in the case waived the usual fee and NYAAF agreed to pay the remaining hospital costs: $4000. We were able to make that pledge and save that young woman?s life because we had the funds on hand and a mechanism in place to get them quickly to where they needed to go. But that pledge nearly drained our remaining 2009 budget, and in order to meet the demand for our assistance in 2010, we need your help.

Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to NYAAF to help us face the challenges of the coming year. The obstacles are only increasing: We lost a hero this year, Dr. George Tiller, whose murder in August has left us with few places to turn when a woman comes to us in need of a later-term procedure. On top of this, the ongoing healthcare debate in Congress may carry with it new restrictions on abortion funding, thus increasing the need for our fund. NYAAF is an all-volunteer organization, which means that 100% of your tax-deductible contribution goes directly to women in need. Even small amounts can make a huge difference in the lives of the women we help. Give online now at www.nyaaf.org or send a check to:

New York Abortion Access Fund
FDR Station, Box 7569
New York, NY 10150

Thank you for helping to ensure access to abortion services for all women!

Sincerely,

Lauren Alexander
On behalf of the New York Abortion Access Fund

The NYAAF phone lines will be closed for December 24th – 25th and December 31- January 1st for the Holiday – However we will be checking messages for the rest of the week – so if you are looking to speak with us please call and leave a message.

Thanks

NYAAF Board

This is the New York Times Op Ed Piece examining what will happen with Abortion Coverage under the STUPAK amendment to the Health Care Reform Bill.

Abortion Funding and Social Justice: A Perspective from Mexico

Please join The Center for Reproductive Rights, the Guttmacher Institute, the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, New York Abortion Access Fund and Ipas for a special event with Eugenia López Uribe, a Mexican activist and coordinator of the MARIA Abortion Fund for Social Justice.

Ms. López is on a speaking tour of the U.S. from Mexico, where she advocates for sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and young people.

In her work with the MARIA fund, she helps Mexican women access safe, legal abortion and defends the right to abortion in Mexico.  Ms. López will talk about the liberalization of the abortion law in Mexico City and the critical role of funding for women to exercise their right to abortion.

Tuesday, November 10 at 6:30 pm

The Center for Reproductive Rights

120 Wall Street, 14th Floor, New York

Please RSVP by November 9^th by contacting Yasmine at yasmine@latinainstitute.org or 212-422-2553.

Dear everyone,