SAN ANTONIO — Planned Parenthood South Texas announced the creation of the Fanny Fund on Monday, a new initiative to expand health care access to thousands of people in need.
The announcement coincided with the two-year mark since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the Dobbs case, which stripped away the constitutional right to abortion nationwide.
In Texas, abortion is banned except in narrow circumstances to save the mother’s life.
“Texas leads the nation in people without health insurance. The need for preventative reproductive health care has never been greater,” said Laura Terrill, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood South Texas.
The six-figure Fanny Fund was named after Fanny Goldstein, the great grandmother of Elise Boyan, former board chair of Planned Parenthood South Texas.
The YWCA SA, SA Youth and Empower House SA are the current community partners tasked with identifying residents who lack health insurance to cover a variety of services.
“The Fanny Fund increases access to essential care by helping them pay for the care that they need,” Terrill said. “These vouchers will allow clients to come to us for essential care like birth control, cancer screenings and prevention.”
Amy Gonzalez was among the many supporters who attended the press conference at San Antonio City Hall.
“I think it’s essential. My experience with Planned Parenthood started off when I was a teenager and I needed birth control and I did not want to get pregnant,” Gonzalez said.
Officials with Planned Parenthood South Texas said the fund will not result in providing financial relief for individuals seeking out-of-state abortion services.
Planned Parenthood South Texas offers free “abortion navigation” services for those needing guidance on how and where to secure abortion services nationwide.
The Fanny Fund is separate from the City of San Antonio’s $500,000 Reproductive Justice Fund, which was established in September 2023.
The San Antonio City Council recently decided half of the funds will go toward prevention such as sex education, scholarships or doula training, while $200,000 will go toward emergency contraception, telehealth visits and possibly transportation for abortion care in other states where the practice is legal. There’s now a call out to organizations who will propose how they can use the funds.
In April, a judge dismissed the lawsuit filed by anti-abortion groups that alleged the Reproductive Justice Fund’s potential use of funds for abortion travel was illegal. However, it’s not against the law to fund out-of-state abortion services following a federal judge’s dismissal of Attorney General Ken Paxton’s legal challenge against numerous abortion funds.
“Life is valuable. It could be them that was in the womb and their mother destroyed them for the sake of convenience,” said anti-abortion advocate Greg Kidwell, one of several people who voiced opposition to Planned Parenthood South Texas’s new initiative and the Reproductive Justice Fund.
Meanwhile, Mayor Ron Nirenberg is hopeful that the funds will prove transformational for thousands of south Texans who need health care.
“While we continue to face significant challenges it is encouraging to see the collective efforts of trusted health care providers like Planned Parenthood South Texas and proactive measures on the municipal level,” Nirenberg said.
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