Ammie Pascua’s earliest memories of pregnancy weren’t her own. They were of her mother’s bitterness and resentment.
Growing up, Pascua often overheard her mother describe the most dangerous ways she had tried to end her pregnancy — taking drugs, smoking heavily, even jumping off curbs.
Again and again, her mother muttered that keeping Pascua had been a mistake and that she should never have been born.
“The only context I had for these conversations was: ‘This is a terrible, bad thing. I’m a terrible, bad thing. My mom is a terrible, bad thing,’” Pascua said.
Her mother walked out on the family when Pascua was two, returning when she was five.
The absence left a deep mark on Pascua’s childhood during a time when she longed for affection and wondered why love seemed so far out of reach.
The wound lingered, and years later, when she had her first abortion in 2012, Pascua again felt isolated and alone.
She found herself pregnant again seven years later, by then a mother to two sons. But what could have been another misery took a different turn.
A provider put her in touch with the Richmond Reproductive Freedom Project, an abortion fund the likes of which have spread across the United States. The grassroots organizations are dedicated to removing financial and logistical roadblocks for those in need of abortion.
The Richmond fund paid for her procedure, but the aid went beyond money, offering emotional support as well, asking if she was okay or if she needed a ride or if she had someone to take care of her.
“I literally broke down in tears, like sobbing, crying, because I hadn't ever been offered that kind of support before,” Pascua said.
That $300 lifeline reshaped the way she understood her body, her choices and her life.
Years later, Pascua would help bring the concept to Hampton Roads, helping hundreds more just like her.
Finding help, finding connection
After that emotional experience in 2019, the Richmond fund staffer that she'd been talking with learned Pascua was from Hampton Roads, one of the most populous areas in Virginia without an abortion fund. They asked if she had ever thought about starting one there.
The idea stayed with her. Pascua thought it would be “rad” to see one created in her hometown.
Two years later, when she was in a more stable place, she learned that someone else had begun organizing a fund in the region.
Coming from her own struggle to access abortion, Pascua knew how vital these funds could be for others facing the same barriers. She joined right away.
“It feels good to be able to contribute a little bit, to be in community with other people that are trying to do the same thing, meeting them, growing with them and trying to get through this with them,” Pascua said.
The Hampton Roads fund is the newest of five abortion funds currently operating in Virginia.
Dependent on small-dollar donations and volunteer labor, sustaining that support has become one of the biggest challenges for the grassroots funds.
With demand rising and politics growing more contentious, fund leaders are scrambling to widen their donor base while keeping pace with the financial needs of people seeking abortion care.
“What keeps me going is knowing that it needs to be done, because it needs to get better out there,” Pascua said.
How abortion funds work
For people seeking help, the first step is usually a phone call.
Abortion funds in Virginia operate “warm lines,” where callers leave a message with basic details such as their appointment date, how far along they are and the estimated cost of the procedure.
Staff or volunteers return the call within a day or two to determine how much support the fund can provide.
Pascua said the Hampton Roads Reproductive Justice League typically works with a weekly budget of $900 for abortion care, giving each patient between $100 and $300.
“We wouldn’t cover an entire procedure,” Pascua said. “We can’t because of the amount we’re limited by the amount of funds that we raise, but we also believe in mutual aid.”
The idea of mutual aid is central to how the Hampton Roads Reproductive Justice League operates.
Pascua recalled her own abortion in 2019, when the Richmond Reproductive Freedom Project covered her procedure. Even then, the group asked if she could contribute a few dollars herself or reach out to friends for small donations.
Now she applies the same model: patients give what they can, and those small amounts help others in the community to access care.
After Roe: Virginia at the center of southern access
As of July 2025, Hampton Roads Reproductive Justice League had raised over $90,757 for abortion access and has helped 543 people in Hampton Roads.
The need for abortion funds has grown dramatically since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
The state’s oldest fund, the Blue Ridge Abortion Fund, has supported about 2,400 callers and pledged $1.4 million for abortion and practical support since that decision.
One in four callers to Blue Ridge now comes from outside Virginia, often from states with six- or 12-week bans.
That influx has stretched the budget, even as demand inside the state remains high.
“It really just highlights our need to really ramp up our own development tactics and ensure that we’re not having to rely on some of these philanthropic avenues that we had been relying on in the past,” said Autumn Celeste from Blue Ridge.
Isaac Maddow Zimet, a data scientist at the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research organization, said Virginia has become a critical hub for abortion access as bans sweep across the South and Southeast.
Since 2020, the number of clinician-provided abortions in the state has more than doubled, largely due to those patients crossing state lines.
In 2020, only 7% of abortion patients in Virginia came from out of state. By 2023, that figure reached 15%, and in 2024 it climbed to 23%.
“While providers and organizations supporting people seeking abortion are doing everything they can to ensure people get the care they need and deserve, this situation is not sustainable,” Zimet said in a statement provided to WHRO.
The political landscape also makes the work harder. Pascua said many large funders are pulling money away from grassroots groups and redirecting it toward policy campaigns tied to the state’s constitutional amendment on reproductive freedom.
“In reproductive justice, you dream big. You want collective liberation for all. You want access to all the good things in life,” Pascua said.
A crack in the wall
For Pascua, the topic of abortion is more personal than political.
Her experience with her second abortion and the help and support she received caused her to reexamine a lot about her life. She called her mother and forgave her for the neglect she had felt as a child. Pascua understands now that her mother endured abuse of her own, caught in cycles that had a way of repeating through generations.
“The conversation with the abortion fund was able to release an emotional burden,” Pascua said. “It opened a crack in the wall of our relationship.”
That opening also changed how she thought about her own role as a parent, and now she's working to help others seeking abortions in Hampton Roads to have those same supported experiences.
“That connection from that phone call really was so significant and started so much,” Pascua said. “I was so grateful for that.”
