A Groundswell for Reproductive Rights in Alabama

On May 15, 2019, Alabama’s Republican governor, Kay Ivey, signed the virulently anti-abortion Human Life Protection Act into law. Last month, one year to the day later, the state’s Yellowhammer Fund—one of seventy U.S. groups that work to remove financial and logistical barriers to abortion throughout the United States—announced that it had purchased the West Alabama Women’s Center in Tuscaloosa.

Yellowhammer Fund founder Amanda Reyes says the clinic’s longtime owner, Gloria Gray, had wanted to retire for several years, but was unable to find a suitable buyer. But the enactment of the Human Life Protection Act, which made it a felony, punishable by ninety-nine years in prison, to perform an abortion at any stage of pregnancy unless it was necessary to save the mother’s life, added urgency to the cause.

Lawyers from Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union quickly challenged the act, which was stayed by the courts. Other positive developments followed.

Alabama is one of thirty-three states that prohibits Medicaid from paying for abortions.

“When the Protection Act was passed, it was a shock to many people,” Reyes tells The Progressive, “but it also inspired them to pay attention and become active in protecting their reproductive rights.” Prior to this, she says,  many local progressives were “fatigued, beaten down” by Trump’s election, the seating of Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, and other legislative and electoral setbacks.

The act galvanized them, Reyes says, and prompted a massive number of donations to the Yellowhammer Fund: $4 million in a matter of months.

“Lots of people had been feeling bad that they’d been unable to move politics in a more equitable direction,” Reyes says. “This was true not just in Alabama, but all over the U.S. When Governor Ivey signed the Human Life Protection Act into law, and it was stayed, I think that the barrage of articles and news stories woke people up. Some of the coverage focused on the Yellowhammer Fund as one of the most active groups fighting to protect abortion access. Donating to the fund gave people a simple way to help folks get the abortions they want and need.”

At the same time, Reyes concedes that the groundswell of donations—including $100,000 received the day after a story on the ban posted on Daily Kos—stunned Yellowhammer staff. 

“We knew we wanted to buy the clinic, but we never imagined that we’d be able to do it as soon as we did,” Reyes relates. “It was a dream because we knew that owning a clinic would help us fulfill our mission of making sure that abortion is available to everyone in the state who wants one.”

Since the act’s passage, donations have come into the fund from every corner of the country. Most gifts, Reyes reports, have been small—an average of just $27, similar to Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign. What’s more, she reports a slight uptick in contributions following the announcement of the clinic purchase.

“Right now, we’re in a transition period,” Reyes says. “We took over running the center in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic and we’ve learned how to follow all of the coronavirus protocols for patients and staff. We’re hoping to eventually hire a new medical director—our current doctor wants to retire—and expand our services to include basic gynecological care, STI [sexually transmitted infections] testing and treatment, and the dispensing of hormone therapies and birth control.”

But even without expanding, the West Alabama Women’s Center is an extremely busy place. In 2018, the last year for which statistics are available, the center provided 3,371 of the state’s 6,484 abortions, with two other clinics in Huntsville and Montgomery performing the remainder.

And like abortion clinics throughout the fifty states, the clinic’s work extends beyond patient care: the facility’s nine staff members must also deal with anti-abortion protesters and stay attuned to their menacing or threatening behavior.  In 1993, shortly after Gray opened the center, it was badly damaged by a suspicious fire and sustained $450,000 worth of damage, causing it to be shuttered for several months while repairs were made.

Reyes acknowledges that taking on the work of the West Alabama Women’s Center is a huge undertaking, but says she and her colleagues are more than ready.

For its part, the three-year-old Yellowhammer Fund—the Yellowhammer is Alabama’s state bird and is a symbol used by a wide cross-section of organizations and businesses to signify a connection to civic life—is continuing to raise funds and reach out to prospective donors for ongoing support. 

Reyes says about 40 percent of the patients coming into the West Alabama Women’s Center need help paying the $550 fee for a first-trimester abortion; Alabama is one of thirty-three states that prohibits Medicaid from paying for abortions. The average grant provided through the fund is $175.

“Right now, people are funding abortion, contributing to bail funds, and supporting mutual aid efforts in cities and towns all over the country,” Reyes says. “These are concrete ways to get into the fight, to make sure people’s needs are met and ensure that their friends and neighbors are going to be okay.”