An abortion fund is a non-profit organization that provides financing for abortions to indigent women who cannot afford the fees. Abortion funds are widespread in countries like the United States of America where there is no national healthcare plan and where health insurance policies may not cover abortions.
Abortion funds rarely provide grants for the entire procedure. Instead, clients are interviewed individually and expected to raise as much as possible out-of-pocket, with the remainder provided by the fund in some combination of grant and/or repayable loan. Some funds will combine resources with other funds to increase the grant or loan total. This greatly increases the number of procedures that abortion funds can finance. However, since clients typically have poor credit, loans are given at modest interest rates, and funds do not employ aggressive collection tactics against their debtors, the abortion funds are still heavily dependent on donations and outside grants for their functioning. Most abortion funds are entirely staffed by volunteers, although a few of the larger funds have some paid administrative staff.
Most abortion funds are local and serve a particular region or metropolitan area, and are funded primarily by local donors and grant-making institutions. Some grants are only available to minors or young teenagers. Some abortion funds are related to a specific clinic, with funds available only for patients of that clinic. The National Network of Abortion Funds is an umbrella group for local abortion funds in the United States.
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