With Utah set to drastically limit abortion access beginning May 3, three volunteers are still working to ensure those who need care are able to get it.
Together, they make up the Utah Abortion Fund, which connects people who need abortions with the resources they need to get one — whether that’s money for a procedure, money for a hotel stay or money to travel to a clinic. Last year, they raised over $135,000 in abortion funding.
The identities of the fund’s three organizers are known to The Salt Lake Tribune. The Tribune is not naming them because of safety concerns for the volunteers and the people they assist.
“Right before Dobbs,” the fund’s hotline coordinator said, referencing the U.S. Supreme Court decision last year that overturned Roe v. Wade, “we were having conversations with our friends at clinics, and they were just like, ‘Well, we’re just gonna keep doing this s---t until someone literally comes in and shuts the door.”
“That really felt familiar, and like the right thing to do — which is terrible to say,” they continued, “but what’s the other option?”
How it works
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Abortion Fund materials pictured at the home of one of the fund's founders on March 9, 2023. The fund connects individuals with the resources they need to get an abortion and provided over $135,000 in abortion funding last year.
The Utah Abortion Fund started in 2019 and primarily operates through its hotline, which is how individuals who need help can contact its volunteers to explain their needs.
“None of us really come from a business background — I think that we kind of stumbled into this position,” one of the fund’s co-founders said. “We started out being people who are very passionate about abortion access and reproductive justice, and mutual aid — all of these things. And then through that, we also found ourselves running this organization that is able to redistribute a fair amount of money.”
The fund’s phone number always goes to a voice recording, which directs callers to send the volunteers an email that all three have access to. If callers can’t send an email, they can leave a voicemail specifying their needs.
The fund’s hotline coordinator and one of its co-founders both split the duties of the hotline. Each follows up with callers, making sure their abortion appointments are scheduled correctly and that the clinic they are going to is paid the correct amount.
Knowing the barriers that already exist for patients to access abortion care in Utah — such as completing the state’s required abortion module, obtaining face-to-face informed consent for the procedure, and the state’s mandated 72-hour waiting period — the fund uses a “bare-bones” intake process to distribute its resources to callers.
“Eliminating something that feels like overly hoop-jumping, or like, ‘We have to look at your W-2 to see if you qualify for this money,’ like that type of thing — it feels really good,” the fund’s hotline coordinator said.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Founders of the Utah Abortion Fund talk about their organization on March 9, 2023. The fund, which was started in 2019, connects individuals with resources they need to get an abortion and provided over $135K in abortion funding last year.
The group started out crowdfunding for individual procedures — posting on Instagram that they needed a few hundred dollars to help fund someone’s procedure. Now, they have a formal intake process and have since developed relationships with local Utah clinics — Planned Parenthood and Wasatch Women’s Center.
The first monthly budget the organization operated with was about $5,000. It’s now a “flexible” $15,000, a co-founder said. But with the cheapest procedure costing around $450, and the average caller traveling about 110 miles, costs add up quickly.
“It’s never enough to help everyone, but our capacity has grown a lot,” one of the co-founders said. “Some of it has been DIY, some of it has been learning from other funds — we’re part of the National Network of Abortion Funds, and through that, we’ve been able to connect with other folks who’ve been doing this work longer than we have. So we aren’t exactly reinventing it.”
Increasing demand
So far this year, the fund’s hotline has temporarily shut down twice — once on Feb. 8, and again on March 26. This happens when the group has met its funding cap for the month, because the demand for support is drastically higher than the fund’s capacity. They set monthly caps to ensure the organization’s longevity, they said.
Since a draft of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision was leaked in May 2022, which indicated that the court was poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, the group has disbursed between $11,000 and $21,000 in funds each month, thanks to an influx of donations and support.
The high court ultimately overturned the landmark decision on June 24, 2022. That evening, Utah’s abortion trigger law went into effect, though a state judge days later put it on hold after Planned Parenthood of Utah sued.
A ban on Utah abortions after 18 weeks still went into effect after the Supreme Court’s ruling, and since then, new state laws throughout the West have made the Utah Abortion Fund’s work increasingly difficult and costly.
“Planning, budgeting, trying to build an organization that is operating on more than just a month-to-month basis has been a challenge when there are things like the [Utah] trigger ban, and then now, the most recent legislation around the clinics,” one of the fund’s co-founders said. “All of these things have made it a little difficult for us to know what’s coming next. ... So because of that, we have tried to plan for in case things get worse, where every single person we support is traveling out of state.”
The fund doesn’t ask for a reason why its callers are seeking abortions. But Utah’s new crackdown on clinic care will soon severely limit abortions in the state, forcing all abortion care to take place in hospitals — where a patient may have to pay up to $30,000 out of pocket for the procedure.
“Essentially making abortion only possible in hospitals eliminates 99% of all abortion that’s happening here,” the fund’s hotline coordinator said.
On top of becoming mini-experts as new laws limit abortion access across the country, keeping the fund afloat, and making sure callers can access abortion care, the fund’s three volunteers have their own lives.
One is a med student. Another works in abortion care full-time outside of the fund. And another cofounder is taking on the fund’s responsibilities almost full-time for the time being.
“I think we take time to ourselves, we take care of each other,” one of the fund’s co-founders said. “But the reality is I do slightly feel unhinged 24/7, and then you get hit with a news story, and you’re like, ‘What the f--- is this?’”
The group operates out of one of the co-founder’s homes, alongside bookshelves lined with writings on feminist thought, works by Sylvia Plath and a copy of Gillian Flynn’s “Gone Girl.”
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Abortion Fund materials pictured at the home of one of the fund's founders on March 9, 2023. The fund connects individuals with the resources they need to get an abortion and provided over $135K in abortion funding last year.
For now, they’re planning to continue operating by distributing funds however they can so callers can get the procedures they need — in Utah or elsewhere.
“Something that keeps us going is we’re not the only ones that know that there is a need, and people respond to that need,” one of the fund’s co-founders said. “I’ll say it’s not always consistent. But we also exist because people care enough to see us exist. And I hold that very close to my heart.”
