Abortion Federation, National (NAF)

NAF is the professional association of abortion providers in the United States and Canada.  Our members make reproductive choice a reality.  Our mission is to ensure safe, legal and accessible abortion care to promote health and justice for women.

Why do we exist?

Most women in the U.S. use some form of contraception at times during their reproductive years.  Unfortunately, neither contraceptive methods nor users are perfect, and the rate of contraceptive failure remains high.  About half of all pregnancies are unintended, and about half of unintended pregnancies end in abortion.

While many Americans are concerned about Supreme Court cases that may limit women’s reproductive health care choices, many do not realize that obtaining an abortion has already become seriously compromised.  A shortage of abortion providers, lack of abortion training for future abortion providers, anti-abortion violence and harassment, and legislative and regulatory restrictions are serious problems that limit a woman’s access to abortion care.  

The National Abortion Federation (NAF) is the professional association of abortion providers in the U.S. and Canada.  Our members are the dedicated and compassionate abortion providers who care for more than half of the women who choose abortions annually in the U.S.  In spite of continued threats of violence and harassment, their resolve to serve women remains strong. One NAF physician said: "God bless these women...really they are the reason that I continue to stand in the line of fire every single day."

What have you accomplished?

Support for Pregnant Women:  NAF operates a national, toll-free, multilingual hotline (1-800-772-9100) that provides individual support to women and refers to abortion providers who offer quality care.  We work personally with each woman to provide accurate, unbiased information on pregnancy and abortion.  We also help with other needs such as travel, lodging, and social services.  We have established an assistance fund to help women with the greatest need.  One woman wrote us to say: "I just spoke with a woman on the NAF hotline. I am struggling to type these comments as tears are welling up in my eyes. I did not expect to be treated with such compassion and respect."

Another key resource for women is our website (www.prochoice.org), which contains numerous English and Spanish-language pregnancy and abortion-related resources.  One website user sent us the following feedback:  “I just wanted to say thank you for making abortion information accessible.  I am from a community that is extremely conservative and I knew that I could find no support here.  Your site let me feel like I’m not a bad person for having an abortion.  I cannot say it enough -- THANK YOU!”

Anti-abortion Violence -- Keeping Clinics Open to Serve Women:  NAF provides a comprehensive program of clinic security support to help protect our members and their patients. Providers and law enforcement officials can call our expert security staff for help 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  When violence occurs or is threatened, we send an emergency response team to the site to help abortion providers, staff, and patients.  Our onsite clinic security support helps ease the sense of isolation when providers and clinic staff face anti-abortion threats, protests, and harassment. 

Providing the Medical and Patient Perspectives in Policy Debates: The public, media, and policy makers are inundated with misleading information about abortion, including misinformation designed to frighten women.  Legislators use this erroneous information, or are influenced by it, to justify bills that restrict abortion access or undermine Roe v. Wade.   NAF ensures that the medical, provider, and patient perspectives are heard by decision makers.  We put a human face on public policy debates by bringing forward patients who are willing to talk publicly about their abortions, and we collect stories about the real-life impact of anti-choice policies to share with the media, pro-choice advocates, and legislators.  The pro-choice movement needs NAF’s strong, affirmative voice for the right of women to make their own personal, private health care decisions in consultation with their physicians, without intrusion from the government. 

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