(Bloomberg) -- In just a few weeks, Krista Reid turned an idea to use tattoos as a way to help abortion seekers into reality.
The owner of Oak & Iron Salon and Tattoo, a tattoo shop in Buffalo, New York, started the call for the “My Body My Choice” flash tattoo event in June, shortly after the US Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. On Sunday, more than 150 tattoo and piercing shops will open their doors to raise donations for nonprofits that help abortion seekers who can’t pay for their care. The drive, which will benefit the National Network of Abortion Funds — or NNAF, which distributes money to its 92 member funds.
“I just felt very strongly that I needed to do something,” said Reid of the drive. “And this is the only way that I knew how to stand up for it.”
The event comes at an increasingly critical time for abortion nonprofits, which are spending funds faster than they can raise them. Abortion seekers who live in states that have banned the procedure have to travel hundreds of miles to get it elsewhere and they’re requesting more on average to cover related costs, according to the funds.
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Some Democratic states have pledged resources to local funds and providers, but the increasing need is straining a system that already couldn’t meet demand. Members of NNAF were only able to match 35% of calls between July 2019 and June 2020, the organization noted on its website. One example is Indigenous Women Rising, a fund dedicated to supporting Indigenous and Native abortion seekers and a member of NNAF, which said last week it prematurely hit its July threshold for giving and would have to pause donations until August.
The “My Body My Choice” event will feature pre-approved designs by a variety of artists, which include imagery of burning bras, a pill that notes the year Roe v. Wade was decided and several nods to uteruses. Most tattoos will cost between $100 and $150.
The group has amassed more than 11,000 Instagram followers in less than a month, and TikTok video of Reid announcing the drive has been viewed nearly 400,000 times. Subsequent TikTok videos have garnered tens of thousands of views, as well as comments from people asking if any shops in their area were participating.
It was “bittersweet” to know that the event had grown to its current size, said Jessica Valentine, the owner of Haven Tattoo Studio in Brooklyn, New York. Valentine designed several of the tattoos for the event, and will participate as an artist.
“It’s amazing so many of us tattooers and clients will be banding together for a cause,” she said. “It’s just so sad that we have to in the first place.”
ActBlue, a Democratic fundraising platform, said in its second-quarter recap that it saw $20.6 million in donations the day the Dobbs decision was handed down. That was the most donations seen in a 24-hour period all year, eclipsing the $12 million the platform processed in May during the 24 hours after Justice Samuel Alito’s Dobbs decision draft was leaked.
First-time donors were particularly motivated to give, ActBlue said. While 2020 saw more overall donations for the same quarter, a smaller number of donors made a larger average donation size this year, the company added.
Tattoo shops in 40 states, as well as one in Cornwall, England, have committed to stage events. That includes several shops in Texas, where abortion has been banned after about six weeks of pregnancy since last September. Several artists from various corners of the US told Bloomberg that the event also provides a permanent, visible kind of solidarity for those who participate.
“As a shop, we will just be using the sheet that is being put together for the organization,” said Jordanne Le Fae, the owner of Weird Ink Society in St. Paul, Minnesota, who designed one of the tattoos. “We want our clients to be able to get the same tattoos as so many others across the country.”
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Author: Ella Ceron