Elections be damned, Tampa Bay Abortion Fund will continue to help people

Anyone with values rooted in decency, truth and equal rights didn’t have much hope to cling to on Election Night. But on the Friday after Donald Trump took back the White House, Bree Wallace, in her own pointed and no-fuss nature, offered something of a condolence prize.

“These politicians are never coming to save us,” she told WMNF public affairs program “The Skinny,” adding that connecting to, and knowing, your community, are going to be paramount in the days to come.

She was blunt about the intentions of Democrats who didn’t take advantage of supermajorities during the Clinton and Obama years and codify Roe v. Wade—the landmark U.S. Supreme Court that more-or-less guaranteed access to abortion.

“We are the only people that are going to keep us safe,” she said.

Wallace knows what she’s talking about. For the last two years, the 27-year-old has been Director of Case Management at Tampa Bay Abortion Fund (TBAF).

In this month’s general election, Florida’s Amendment 4—which would have effectively killed the state’s six-week ban and allowed abortion up to viability—needed to flip roughly 301,084 “no” votes to “yes” to pass the state’s unusually-high 60% threshold for approval.

From a busy desk in her Tampa bedroom, Wallace—who also operates the Tampa Period Pantry which provides free menstrual products across the city—will instead spend the foreseeable future connecting often scared young people with healthcare that could potentially save their lives.

Depending on how far a pregnant-person must travel from the Bay area, the cost for an abortion can fluctuate between $500-$20,000 (as previously reported, the closest state to legally access abortion past 12 weeks of pregnancy is Virginia, more than 700 miles away).

Florida Phoenix reported that since Florida’s six-week ban went into effect last May, TBAF had pledged $401,000 to cover the costs of the procedure and travel for 739 people. And while the Yes On 4 Campaign raised more than $104 million dollars, the organization seems poised to use its apparatus not to help raise money for local abortion funds, but instead tackle mounting legal fees in its fight with the State of Florida.

All that combined with the fluctuating nature of donations to abortion funds will only make Wallace’s job harder.

But surrounded by pro-choice posters (”Everyone loves someone who had an abortion,” “Abortion access is a community responsibility”) plus more radical signage (“Nobody’s free until everybody’s free,” “Fuck SCOTUS, we’re doing it anyway”), she is resolute and clear about her choice to avoid hand-wringing over policy and politics and just get to work.

Getting it done, after all, is something that Wallace saw her mom do growing up. “She’s very giving,” Wallace, a lifelong Tampeña, said about the single parent who created a good life for her with a cleaning business. Now, Wallace is helping others get their lives in order, too—in many ways, pulling hope out of despair.

“I always wanted to help people,” she added. And to do that, Wallace is now going to need all the help she can get.

There’s a benefit concert for Tampa Bay Abortion Fund happening Saturday, Nov. 30 at Tampa’s Deviant Libation.

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This article appears in Nov 21-27, 2024.