Okay, I just discovered that Katha Pollit has a blog! And in her first post dated in early June, she made a plea for donations to the Equal Access Fund of Knoxville, Tennessee.
This is the email she received from Heather Robertson of the Equal Access Fund of Tennessee:
"I just received a very desperate plea from a local clinic for funding for a patient that I will be unable to help. Our fund has assisted 5 women this month and after giving this woman $200, we have depleted our funds without completely helping her at all. Please read further:
"We need $400 more in order to pay the fee $850 fee of a 2nd trimester patient who HAS to be seen tomorrow, or she'll be too far along to be seen in the state of Tennessee. In that case, her fee will increase even more and have to pay the traveling expenses, as well.
"She's raised $250 and we have given the clinic $200 on her behalf thus far.
"She's a single mom with a 19 month old; co-conceiver skipped town; no child support because that dude skipped town; she is clinically very depressed and extremely desperate. She makes less than $800 a month working fulltime. She makes too much to get any state aid and definitely not covered by TNCare. She became pregnant after her birth control failed to prevent her pregnancy. Can you help by sending a paypal donation to equalaccessfund@gmail.com asap?"
"She has an appointment at 7:30 a.m. tomorrow morning. "
A donation was made in time to help this woman, but if it weren't for organizations like the Equal Access Fund, many poor and low income women would get absolutely no benefit from Roe. No constitutional right! Like the Equal Access Fund's MySpace page says, "the right to choose abortion is meaningless without access to abortion services."It's almost like voting. It's a constitutional right, but only for some of us.
It's great that some poor and low income Tennessee women get help accessing their constitutional right. But I suspect that most do not know that help is available. Tell somebody about the Equal Access Fund, which is affiliated with the National Network of Abortion Funds.
And consider making a donation. You can donate to equalaccessfund@gmail.com via Paypal.
The fund serves women who are clients of Knoxville clinics.
Knoxville is the only Tennessee city that appears on the NNAF list of cities with abortion Funds. But low income women in Tennessee and across the country can get help paying for abortions by calling the National Abortion Federation Hotline, 1-800-772-9100. If there's a Fund in your city, but it's not on the list, they can probably tell you about it. (I'm pretty sure there is one in Nashville.)
Previous related TGW posts:
Abortion Help for Low-Income Women
Underground Railroad to Abortion Services
Abortion Funds for Women in Red States
Abortion Reproductive Rights Katha Pollit Roe Feminism Abortion Funds Money for Abortions Tennessee Knoxville Equal Access Fund Pro Choice
