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Abortion funds assist people in removing financial barriers to abortion access by assisting with clinic, travel and lodging costs, in addition to providing information and other resources. Despite the importance of abortion funds in meeting unmet reproductive rights needs, no review of the peer-reviewed literature on abortion funds has been conducted. Our overarching research question is “What is the current state of the literature exploring abortion fund access, role, impact and utilization?”. We utilized the ECLIPSE model (Expectation, Client Group, Location, Impact, Professionals, SErvice) to guide our systematic review. Given increasing attacks against reproductive choice in the United States, understanding the state of this research is highly important. The burden placed on abortion funds to support clients needing to travel increasingly long distances to receive adequate care is expected to continue to increase in the coming months and years.
Methods:
This systematic review includes all peer-reviewed research focusing on abortion funds. Before completing our systematic review, our review protocol was first registered with PROSPERO. The search term “abortion fund” was used to identify the following types of peer-reviewed articles: Quantitative studies, including clinical trials, comparative studies, evaluation studies, cross-sectional studies, observational studies, qualitative studies, conceptual and theoretical articles. In addition to google scholar, 8 academic databases were searched between June 2024 and January 2025, identifying 329 articles. The databases were first searched independently by two of the reviewers using the established search strategy and inclusion criteria. After our initial search, the identified articles were further reviewed for their use of the term abortion fund and article reference lists were searched to identify any remaining articles missed in our initial search. We included any articles which meaningfully included abortion funds in their article. A total of 53 articles were identified through this process and 19 were included in our final review after review of the full team. A PRISMA flow chart was used to document exclusion throughout the process.
Results:
In addition to exploring emergent themes that emerged from these articles, articles were analyzed in terms of (a) year of article; (b) type of article; (c) study design, measures and outcomes if a research article; (d) article population; (e )role of abortion fund; (f) impact of abortion fund; (g) utilization of abortion fund resources; and (h) article location. Article findings in particular highlight how the needs of abortion fund clients are uniquely influenced by the particular political, environmental, and social environments in which they reside.
Discussion:
Recommendations and implications for other abortion funds, abortion care providers, and reproductive justice advocates and scholars are discussed, in addition to study limitations and areas of future research. Our findings highlight how attention to the needs of abortion fund clients, and the radical forms of care offered by abortion funds, are increasingly needed as reproductive rights continue to be threatened across the United States. It is hoped that these findings can be utilized as a call for increased attention, support, research, and resources for abortion funds.