raising money for the National Network of Abortion Funds

From Katha Pollitt
The Nation columnist

Dear friend,

Please join me in raising money for the National Network of Abortion Funds. It was NNAF which found and paid for a medically necessary abortion for Michelle Lee, a heart patient whose dangerous pregnancy was deemed not life-threatening enough for her to get an abortion at the Louisiana hospital that was treating her heart condition -- even if she paid for the procedure herself!

NNAF is an umbrella for small local abortion funds, grassroots groups around the country which raise money to help girls and women who cannot pay for abortions. Operating on shoestring budgets, relying on volunteers, these groups are often the only resources for pregnant women who live in states that do not offer Medicaid abortions, or who do not qualify for Medicaid but are nonetheless too poor to afford the operation. Abortion funds make grants and loans, arrange price cuts at clinics in cases of extreme need, and help women overcome the many legal and economic barriers anti-choice legislators have placed around abortion.

Unfortunately, abortion funds can help only a fraction of the women who turn to them. This is where we can make a difference.

1) Send a check for $10 (or more if you can) to NNAF c/o CLPP, Hampshire College, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA 01002.

2) Retype this letter on your own letterhead and sent it to 10 people you know who will be willing to help. Don't worry about sending it to someone who already has received it -- it's important that it's coming from you.

3) Join the Fund in your area -- or help start one if there is none. Check out the NNAF website.

$10 is not a lot of money -- it's a pizza, a paperback, popcorn and a movie. But added to the gifts of others, your $10 can mean that a student gets to graduate, a battered woman gets a fresh start, a struggling mother gets some control over her life. Plus you will be helping to strengthen a wonderful organization at a time when abortion is the target of increasing levels of terrorist violence, up to and including murder.

Thank you for your help.

Katha Pollitt, January 1999
The Nation