For Ann Shulman, who heads the Erik and Edith Bergstrom Foundation, heightened abortion restrictions are having health and social impacts that are difficult to describe. “How do I put words to it?” she said in a recent interview. “It’s truly a crisis.”
That’s why the foundation is providing funding for the Brigid Alliance, one of the country’s leading abortion access and support providers. The Brigid Alliance provides practical help for women seeking abortions — from plane tickets to child care. As the website puts it, “We get people to abortion care, whatever it takes.”
The Erik and Edith Bergstrom Foundation, which keeps a low profile and doesn’t have a web presence, was created by Erik Bergstrom, who founded the Bergstrom Capital Corporation, and his wife, Edith, an artist. Erik Bergstrom died in 2017, and Edith is no longer involved in the foundation’s day-to-day operations.
For those working to protect abortion rights, support from funders like the Bergstrom Foundation is critical. In the wake of the Dobbs decision, individual and philanthropic funding for reproductive rights surged in a tidal wave of so-called “rage giving.” That flow slowed the following year, as IP’s Dawn Wolfe reported last summer, with abortion funds experiencing “a steady decline” in donations.
Today, the situation is growing even darker. Abortion funds, which help pay for procedures and abortion medication (some also cover travel and other practical costs) are severely stretched as more states impose restrictions post-Dobbs, boosting demand for care. In a press call in June, some abortion fund directors said they are being forced to slash the financial support they can offer clients, as HuffPost reported: “When abortion funds run out of money, the reality is people go without the abortion care they want, need and deserve,” said Lexis Dotson-Dufault, the executive director of the Abortion Fund of Ohio.
During the call, Oriaku Njoku, the executive director of the National Network of Abortion Funds, called the situation “a state of emergency,” adding, “I’m afraid that there is this level of complacency that has happened post-Dobbs.”
In an IP guest post this spring, Njoku urged philanthropy to do more. She pointed out that some abortion rights funders are prioritizing advocacy and legislative reform over direct services. Such funding is important, of course, but so is direct support for those upon whom abortion restrictions are having the most impact.
“Today, funders in the reproductive health, rights and justice space are disproportionately focused on legislative advocacy, effectively overlooking a more holistic funding model rooted in reproductive justice that centers support for people who are facing astronomical barriers and risks to accessing basic healthcare,” Njoku wrote.
Increasing distances, rising costs, closing windows
Overcoming those barriers is the Brigid Alliance’s zone of operation — and the Bergstrom Foundation’s, as well. “The focus of our work is on providing direct services, and providing those high-quality services to overlooked, underserved, marginalized populations,” Shulman said. “And that’s exactly what the Brigid Alliance is doing, so it is a very good fit for our strategic direction.”
The Brigid Alliance is a national organization created in 2018 that works in 50 states and Puerto Rico. Its founders were inspired by Fund Texas Choice, an early practical support organization that has been helping people travel to other states for abortion care for over a decade.
The Brigid Alliance’s founders identified and wanted to fill a gap in abortion care services for women whose pregnancies were further along, so the organization works with women who are 15 weeks into pregnancy and beyond. This increases the urgency in terms of scheduling care and arranging travel before the timing window closes, making it too late in pregnancy to qualify for abortion care. But as more states impose stringent abortion bans, women are forced to travel further for care, while clinics facing increasing demand are scheduling appointments further into the future.
“The later you get into pregnancy, the fewer providers are there to help and to provide care,” said Serra Sippel, Brigid Alliance’s interim executive director. “Later in pregnancy, procedures are more complicated, and a patient might need to stay one or two nights. So you can imagine when the clinics are feeling the strain, and have no appointments available, that pushes you further into pregnancy and your options become even fewer in terms of accessing care.”
Brigid Alliance coordinators work with clients to navigate these logistics, arranging travel, lodging, funds for meals, childcare stipends and other details. If a client wants a companion to accompany them, the alliance will cover those costs, as well. Meanwhile, travel, lodging and food prices are all on the rise; the average costs for one client’s itinerary was $2,300 in 2023, according to the alliance’s website. The Brigid Alliance doesn’t provide funding for abortion procedures, but works closely with abortion funds that do.
It may be obvious, but it’s worth underscoring that abortion access is an equity issue. In her Dobbs dissent, Justice Elena Kagan (joined by Justices Sotomayor and Breyer) predicted that “above all others, women lacking financial resources will suffer from today’s decision,” and she was right.
Most Brigid Alliance patients experience poverty and lack health insurance. Two-thirds are people of color, and one-third already have children. And with many abortion funds facing funding shortages, cobbling together money for a procedure can be tricky, Sippel pointed out.
“Abortion is only one of the things happening in our clients’ lives,” she said. “Many are experiencing violence in the home, some have a substance use disorder, some are housing insecure or don’t have housing at all, or are living in a shelter. For many, an abortion later in pregnancy means they may have to be away for a couple of days, which can result in lost wages or the loss of a job. The economic impact of these abortion bans — I don’t think there’s enough attention on what that means economically for individuals and their families.”
Meeting increasing demand
Since Dobbs, demand for the Brigid Alliance’s services has ratcheted up; according to Sippel, it’s now serving 30% more clients. In response, the alliance has increased its capacity, including the number of coordinators available to work with clients.
The need for such services will likely only increase as more states impose abortion restrictions. Florida and Iowa both recently adopted six-week abortion bans, for example, forcing pregnant women to travel increasingly long distances for care.
Given the need, the Brigid Alliance has ambitious financial goals for the future. It recently announced that it will spend $45 million over the next three years to expand its services further and double the number of clients it serves. These plans were put into motion when two anonymous donors marked the organization’s fifth anniversary with $15 million grants. The Brigid Alliance intends to raise money to match and augment those funds over the next three years to reach its $45 million spending goal.
Along with the Erik and Edith Bergstrom Foundation — and those two anonymous donors — the Brigid Alliance’s funders include the Isabel Allende Foundation, the Argosy Foundation, the, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies and a number of others, according to its annual report. Phoebe Gates, the daughter of Melinda French Gates and Bill Gates, is one of the organization’s newest donors.
“It does feel like we’re going backward”
While there are big funders focused on reproductive rights in the U.S. (the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, for example), one dynamic that may be limiting philanthropic support for work like that of the Brigid Alliance is that some backers have traditionally looked abroad to fund reproductive rights and health.
The Bergstrom Foundation, for instance, is limited in how much support it can provide for reproductive rights in the United States. The foundation is governed by a trust agreement dictating that at least 50% of its funding go to nine countries in East Africa; the remaining 50% or less is divided between Latin America, the Caribbean and the United States. Given the assault on reproductive rights here, Ann Shulman would like the foundation to be able to provide more funding stateside.
“There’s been less of an emphasis in the United States historically,” she said. “We hope that will eventually shift, but I can’t tell you what the timing on that might be.” Such a shift would require a change in the trust agreement, which in turn requires a petition to the state attorney general and the probate court.
Other funders don’t share Bergstrom’s specific situation, though, and the hope is that more will step up as they realize that far from being ahead of the less wealthy nations that often receive American philanthropic largesse, the U.S. is falling badly behind on reproductive care. Given the makeup of the current Supreme Court, it is hard not to be pessimistic — at least for the near future — particularly since the landscape is so grim just two years after Dobbs.
To prepare the congressional report cited earlier — fittingly titled “It Will Only Get Worse” — authors consulted OBGYNs to determine the impact of the Dobbs decision and “heard resounding confirmation of the deeply damaging impact of Dobbs on women’s health. OBGYN residents reported seeing sicker patients that suffered from greater complications due to delayed care.”
In states that have enacted restrictive abortion measures, pregnant women are being turned away from emergency rooms — and suffering the health impacts — because medical staff are afraid of violating the law if they provide treatment. It is hard to square this with support for the sanctity of life, particularly after a recent JAMA Pediatrics study found that infant deaths in Texas shot up almost 13% (compared to 1.8% for the rest of the U.S.) after the state passed its tough 2021 abortion ban. And a Commonwealth Fund report warned that abortion restrictions are likely to increase the number of maternal deaths, which are already higher in the U.S. than most high-income countries.
Shulman at the Bergstrom Foundation, who has an international perspective on reproductive rights, can’t help comparing the bleak situation in the U.S. to other countries. “What strikes me is that there is forward movement in a lot of places in the world, including our neighbor, Mexico,” she said. “It does feel like we’re going backward, and that as a nation, we’re failing to provide basic healthcare, which is so fundamental to human wellbeing and dignity and productivity. The hope is that someday, the services that the Brigid Alliance is providing won’t be necessary, but right now, they are critical. They are filling a need and a gap. There’s just a gaping hole.”
