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Rising costs of fuel, other goods squeezes already strained abortion funds
The increasing costs of fuel for cars and airplanes is adding extra strain to abortion funds that help people pay to travel for care in other states, leaders of several funds said this week. Abortion funds can help when someone must travel from their home state to a state where care is available. That often includes people living in one of the 13 states with a near-total abortion ban, but it also encompasses those who need to travel because of gestational limits in other states. Funds, which often come exclusively from donations, help pay for the cost of the abortion procedure as well as transportation costs, lodging, meals and other expenses.
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The increasing costs of fuel for cars and airplanes is adding extra strain to abortion funds that help people pay to travel for care in other states, leaders of several funds said this week.
Abortion funds can help when someone must travel from their home state to a state where care is available. That often includes people living in one of the 13 states with a near-total abortion ban, but it also encompasses those who need to travel because of gestational limits in other states. Funds, which often come exclusively from donations, help pay for the cost of the abortion procedure as well as transportation costs, lodging, meals and other expenses.
In the four years since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health case, abortion fund leaders say the need for assistance has exploded. Poonam Dreyfus-Pai, interim executive director of the National Network of Abortion Funds, said Monday that the funds supported more than 158,000 people in 2025, up from 82,000 in 2022. And the cost per person has doubled from less than $200 to nearly $400 on average nationwide.
Dreyfus-Pai said about one-third of the abortion funds in their network reported that they had to pause their hotline services in 2025 because of funding shortages, staff burnout, legal barriers, security concerns and other issues.
“We’re seeing that this year is even harder for funds, with many more funds needing to temporarily close their doors to stretch their funding, and some even closing permanently,” Dreyfus-Pai said.
In Virginia, Blue Ridge Abortion Fund Executive Director April Greene said more than one-quarter of their callers traveled from out of state in the current fiscal year. Greene said the fund has distributed more than $6.1 million in funding since it was founded in 1989, but more than $4 million of that came after the Dobbs decision.
Melisa Hidalgo-Cuellar, director of Colorado’s Cobalt Abortion Fund, said her organization saw a 1,000% increase in spending for abortion seekers from 2021 to 2025, supporting patients from 32 states and six countries. The fund spent $2.4 million to support abortion seekers in 2025, compared with $206,000 spent in 2021, before Dobbs. Many of the fund’s out-of-state clients are from Texas, which has a near-total ban and other civil enforcement laws related to abortion.
The spending rose another 26% in the first three months of 2026, at least in part because of rising fuel costs associated with the ongoing conflict in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and recent price increases for food and other services. The total spent in the first quarter of 2025 was about $465,000, while the total in the first quarter of 2026 was nearly $590,000.
“We saw a 44% increase in how much we spent on flights in March of 2025 to March of 2026,” Hidalgo-Cuellar said. “So it’s a significant increase.”
The airfare costs can be especially high because when funds receive a help request, the caller usually needs to travel within a few days. Ginnely Carrasco, director of programs and interim executive director of the Florida Access Project, said the quick travel window can increase a ticket’s price by $500 to $700.
According to a report published Tuesday, the Cobalt Abortion Fund also spent $23,000 in the first quarter of this year to support access to abortion medication by telehealth. Continued access via telehealth to mifepristone, one of two drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to terminate a pregnancy before 10 weeks, is threatened by an ongoing lawsuit filed by the state of Louisiana in 2025.
The U.S. Supreme Court preserved the rule allowing telehealth prescriptions for now, but the case is ongoing.
Stateline reporter Kelcie Moseley-Morris can be reached at kmoseley@stateline.org.
Originally published by Stateline (Florida). Author: Kelcie Moseley-Morris. Read the original story.
