Abortion funds face financial squeeze 3 years after Roe was overturned
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Calm markets on this Wednesday. I'm David Brancaccio in Los Angeles. First, we learned this week that the typical price median for a used home in the month of May was approaching $423,000. This from the National Association of Realtors.

Prices aren't rising as fast, but they're still running higher than inflation. Today, we'll get data on new home sales and prices. Marketplace's Mitchell Hartman has more. The median price of a new home in America has held well above $400,000 since late 2024. Before the pandemic, prices were in the low $300,000 range.

Joe Bersuelas at consulting firm RSM says with supply shortages, tariffs and worker deportations, building costs have soared. Especially construction materials, challenges finding labor to build homes result in higher prices.

The supply of homes on the market is gradually rising as more homeowners give up their low mortgage rates and decide to sell. But demand is even higher, says Bruce Welles. Young people want to buy homes. Right now, the combination of rising prices and higher interest rates serves as an effective barrier to inhibit that.

Mortgage rates are hovering around 6.8%, making the monthly payment prohibitive for many households. And Bruce Willis says rates are not likely to fall, given the Fed's policy of holding interest rates steady while global investors shy away from U.S. debt in the face of tariffs and rising deficits. The mortgage rate, absent all of these policy-induced disruptions, should be sitting between 5.5% and 6%.

But he says rates that low aren't in the cards for the foreseeable future. I'm Mitchell Hartman for Marketplace.

This week, the World Economic Forum's annual conference in China is going on, what's been dubbed Summer Davos. And China is taking the opportunity to encourage other countries to engage more deeply in international trade. As President Trump's tariffs pull in the other direction, China's Premier Li Qiyong said globalization will not be reversed, although he didn't comment specifically on the U.S.-China trade war. The BBC's Surin Chana Tiwari is at the conference. BBC.

People I've been speaking to seem to say that is perhaps a nod to an alternative economic order that's emerging because of the chaos that's been created by tariffs from US President Donald Trump and the need for businesses and economies to be able to plan going forward

It's just not been possible when they don't know how much tariffs their goods might be subject to if they are to ship them to the US or even to Mexico and Canada for assembly and then into the US. China is certainly taking advantage of that opportunity and saying, hey, we're here, we could work together, we have a big economy and we have a lot to offer.

This week marks three years since the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision, which reversed Roe v. Wade and opened the door to tighter abortion restrictions in many parts of the country.

A report now on donations from grassroots funders that help people travel to states where abortion is legal. Marketplace's Savannah Peters has that. On the day the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, the Wild West Access Fund, based in Nevada, received over $100,000 in donations. The influx was big. It was enough for at least a year by itself.

That's director Macy Haverda. She says the fund used that surge to meet growing demand from clients in nearby states with new restrictions and to cover the rising cost of gas or airfare to get them to a clinic. Abortion itself has also gotten more expensive. By about 20 percent in the last year at the clinics the Wild West Access Fund works with. But in the last 18 months, Haverda says donations have slowed.

In 2024, she says donors may have redirected their money toward political campaigns supporting abortion rights. Now, she thinks people are just tired. The just constant onslaught of news just really gets exhausting. Abortion funds across the country are feeling this squeeze, says Gretchen Ely, who studies them at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

The demand has gone up, but their revenue has kind of fallen off and they're having to do more with less. Ely says some funds are reducing the amount of support they can offer, meaning patients have to cobble together financial help. When people are having to reach out to multiple organizations, it's delaying the procedure. Which can drive up the price of an abortion — they're more expensive later in pregnancy — or put one entirely out of reach.

It's creating a lot of haves and have-nots in the world of who can actually access abortion. Says UC Davis Law Professor Mary Ziegler.

Three years out from Dobbs, she says grassroots anti-abortion groups are in much better financial shape than these funds, despite generally raising less money. Most of the time, the anti-abortion movement is just lobbying and litigating, right? It's not really trying to provide a lot of medical care to a lot of people. And demand for help from abortion funds could keep rising in the coming years, according to Megan Jafoe, who heads up the Chicago Abortion Fund.

Medicaid being cut, SNAP benefits being cut, these are all things people think about when deciding whether to start or grow a family. JFO says Illinois is already the number one destination for abortion patients traveling out of their home states.

Every day we are deeply concerned about our ability to survive. J.F.O. says the Chicago Abortion Fund hasn't had to turn away a client asking for help in six years. But the landscape has changed, and she's not sure how long her fund can keep up. I'm Savannah Peters for Marketplace.

And after Tesla started real-world tests of its driverless taxis in Austin this weekend, video has emerged of some of those four-wheeled robots doing crazy dangerous things. Federal highway safety regulators are looking into apparent cases of autonomous musk mobiles going straight through intersections from a turning lane or driving down highways.

the wrong side of the road. The quote from the feds, NHTSA is aware of the referenced incidents and is in contact with the manufacturer to gather additional information. In Los Angeles, I'm David Brancaccio, Marketplace Morning Report from APM, American Public Media.

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