On a post-Roe v. Wade internet, unvetted abortion support is going viral

Kristen Radtke / The Verge

Social media platforms have buzzed with anger, dismay, and offers of assistance since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion last week.

A particular offer has caught the attention of the media. People are opening their homes to abortion patients who need to travel for care because of the social media craze.

If you need a place to stay after an abortion, I have a bed for you at my apartment in Portland. It's free One person liked more than 150,000 times and shared it with more than 20,000 others.

It has been part of practical abortion support to provide lodging or transportation to appointments. People who weren't doing this work before now want to do it. It feels like a direct way to help when you make an offer of accommodations.

Organizations that have been coordinating lodging and transportation services worry that an influx of one-off, public, and unvetted offers could put patients and volunteers in dangerous situations.

Jade, who coordinates volunteers and trainings with the Northwest Abortion Access Fund, said volunteers go through a number of steps and screenings before they can host abortion seekers in their homes. After a brief intake form, the fund conducts phone screenings, trainings, and walk-throughs of homes, making note of how accessible it is for people just coming out of a procedure, and whether there is privacy for patients.

NWAAF paused home stays during the Pandemic and staff members are working on retooling their process in order to restart the program. Jade says that people who need a place to stay after an abortion go throughReputable organizations that know what they're doing.

As the SCOTUS decision neared, Jade said they were concerned about the issue because of the real security and safety concerns.

For one, abortion resources like funding, transportation, and lodging already come from a variety of sources, and accessing them is often difficult or confusing. Without trained or experienced staff, a relatively risky arrangement could become even riskier.

Jade is worried that harm could happen from well-intentioned people if there isn't a vetting process. The volunteers may be in bad faith. Similar to how crisis pregnancy centers operate, anti-abortion individuals welcoming patients into their homes could try to talk someone out of getting an abortion.

Hosts could be at risk from unmediated and unvetting stays. Recent anti-abortion laws suggest that the future of abortion is criminalizing not just people seeking reproductive care, but also those that help them access it. The Texas abortion ban, which was temporarily blocked by a Texas judge this week, allows anyone who helps a patient get an abortion to be sued.

Jade says there are more legitimate risks to being a public advocate for abortion. It makes it possible for people to find your address, phone number, and generally know what you are up to.

Janie Harvey Garner, a nurse and creator of the Volunteer Aunties Facebook group, doesn't worry about the risk of abortion. Volunteer Aunties has grown to around 3,500 members, many of whom were recruited through another Facebook group for healthcare workers she moderates.

She wants to connect volunteers with groups doing abortion access work.

Harvey Garner wants to hook these volunteers who are in a demographic that follows him. She said if someone joined the group looking to help, she would point them to available resources.

Several members of the group have raised safety concerns about using the platform to coordinate with each other. People joining Volunteer Aunties have to answer a few screening questions, but Harvey believes that the group is already being watched by anti-abortion users.

She believes there were people who were anti-woman in the first 1000 members.

As people face new challenges to abortion access, it's not clear how platforms will respond. Posts that offer to mail abortion pills are in violation of Meta's policies. The sharing of information about abortion is not safe.

As a person goes through the process of getting an abortion, new groups or individuals often aren't equipped to respond to the many situations that can arise. The questions veteran organizations have, such as how to minimize a patient's digital footprint, how to respond to a crisis before or after a procedure, and how to protect patient privacy, may not have been thought through by the less experienced actors.

Many practical support groups have moved away from volunteer housing in recent years, despite the fact that offers of couches and guest rooms went viral on social media.

She says that private hotel rooms are what clients want. They don't want to sit on the couch of a stranger.

Money and patience will allow organizations to serve abortion seekers most effectively, according to Falcon and Jade. Plugging into the groups nearby that are active, which tend to be unfunded and under-resourced already, is what people who want to help do.

Falcon says that a lot of the support is about people wanting to offer things that they want to offer and not thinking about the needs and interests of the clients. We need to talk about what people need rather than what people want to give.