DENVER — Cobalt Abortion Fund, an organization that gives financial support to people seeking abortions in Colorado, reports it's quadrupled the amount of financial support provided over the past two years.
“In 2021, before Senate Bill 8 out of Texas and before the Dobbs decision in June, we supported mostly procedure funding for abortion seekers here in Colorado,” said Melisa Hidalgo-Cuellar, Cobalt Abortion Fund director. “After the Dobbs decision, we really increased that level of support to include what's called practical support. So practical support is travel, lodging, child care, meal support, etc.”
Hidalgo-Cuellar said the increase in practical support is due to more out-of-state clients seeking abortion care.
“For procedural funding, we spent $200,000 in total in 2021. And then for practical support funding, it was mostly meal assistance back then because we were helping mostly folks in Colorado accessing abortion care in Colorado, and that total expenditure in 2021 was $6,000 for meal support,” Hidalgo-Cuellar said. “The expenditures have gone up substantially in the past couple of years. And we see that level increasing every single month in 2023. Cobalt’s abortion fund in whole — procedure funding and practical support assistance — we're looking at spending over a million dollars this year, that $600,000 to $650,000 in procedure funding alone, serving just over 2000 clients so far this year… For practical support assistance, we are at $333,000, serving just over 1,000 clients.”
Hidalgo-Cuellar said nearly half of their clients are from out-of-state, with the majority coming from Texas.
A recent Texas case has garnered national attention after resident Kate Cox asked for a medical exception to receive an emergency abortion. Cox, who learned her fetus had a fatal condition, said her doctors warned continuing the pregnancy could negatively impact her fertility.
A Texas judge ruled Cox could bypass state law and obtain an emergency abortion, but that ruling was overturned by the Texas Supreme Court. Before the Texas Supreme Court's ruling came down Monday evening, Molly Duane, an attorney for Cox, said Cox was fleeing the state to have the procedure.
“If Kate Cox doesn’t qualify for an emergency abortion, then I don’t know who does,” said Duane. “I want to be really clear, those exceptions do not actually exist in practice.”
Duane said doctors from other states, including Colorado, have offered to perform the procedure.
"I think that Kate Cox's case really caught nationwide attention because she went through these necessary channels that Texas had set up in order to access abortion care, and she was still denied that care," Hidalgo-Cuellar said.
Hidalgo-Cuellar said like Cox, abortion seekers are willing to travel, and Cobalt is working to provide more funding for people who want abortion care.
In a statement, President Joe Biden condemned Texas officials, saying "No woman should be forced to go to court or flee her home state just to receive the health care she needs. But that is exactly what happened in Texas thanks to Republican elected officials, and it is simply outrageous. This should never happen in America, period."
"No woman should be forced to go to court or flee her home state just to receive the health care she needs. But that is exactly what happened in Texas thanks to Republican elected officials, and it is simply outrageous. This should never happen in America, period.
Legal and medical chaos, as we are witnessing in states like Texas, Kentucky and Arizona, is a direct result of Roe v. Wade being overturned, and as we predicted would happen, women’s health and lives now hang in the balance. Republican elected officials have imposed dangerous abortion bans that jeopardize women’s health, force them to travel out of state for care, and threaten to criminalize doctors. Their agenda is extreme and out-of-step with the vast majority of Americans.
The Vice President and I will continue to fight to protect access to reproductive health care and to urge Congress to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade now so that women in every state have the right to make their own health care decisions."
