Abortion Rights Fund of Western Massachusetts

77 Chestnut Street, Amherst, Massachusetts 01002
Enhanced Volunteer Enhanced Volunteer

OUR MISSION

The Abortion Rights Fund of Western Massachusetts was created in 1988, fifteen years after the Supreme Court legalized abortion in its 1973 decision on Roe vs Wade. Three years later, however, Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, prohibiting any use of federal funds, including Medicare and Medicaid, to pay for abortions. Soon after the amendment went into effect, women who would go on to build the Fund raised money for two women’s abortions, one paid for by a woman’s group of friends and another by an anonymous donor. This success led them to “pass it on”– to keep up the momentum by finding ways for other people to access their legal rights. Political activists, nurses and therapists, and Western Massachusetts college students and faculty worked together to put the Fund into action.