When the one-two punch of Senate Bill 8—a 2021 Texas law that barred nearly all abortion care —and the U.S. Supreme Court’s subsequent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade befell Texans, Blanca Murillo felt like she was on the brink of hopelessness. Murillo had spent her entire career in the reproductive rights movement in Texas, and, as the development director with The Lilith Fund, the oldest abortion fund operating in the state, she worried for the many clients her group serves.
Abortion funds like Lilith work on the frontlines of abortion care, providing financial assistance for the procedure or for travel, hotel stays, and childcare. The nonprofit, grassroots groups—often under the radar relative to large national organizations like Planned Parenthood—serve as a critical bridge to help largely low-income people of color access out-of-state care. And their hands are full under Texas’ strict abortion bans: More than 28,000 people are now forced to flee the nation’s second-most populous state annually.
But Murillo’s despair soon shifted to hope when her group was met with a massive swell of what some call “rage donations,” sparked by anger against both SB 8 and the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision. While Lilith’s yearly budget hovered around $1 million before the back-to-back historic attacks on abortion rights, the group saw its coffers skyrocket to more than $6 million afterward. “People were understandably enraged and wanted to help. I was in awe of how much everyone cared at that time,” said Murillo.
