Our mission, values, and vision:
Yellowhammer Fund (YHF) is a 501(c)3 abortion advocacy and Reproductive Justice organization serving Alabama, Mississippi, and the Deep South. We envision a society in which reproductive decisions are made free from coercion, shame, or state interference, a society in which individuals and communities have autonomy in making healthy choices regarding their bodies and their futures. We commit ourselves to community education and empowerment, policy advocacy, and the development of mutual aid to ensure that our friends, families, and neighbors never go without the critical resources they need.
Yellowhammer Fund was established in 2017 to ensure individuals and communities have access and autonomy to make healthy choices regarding their bodies and futures. Uniting together to ensure women visiting the West Alabama Center had safe passage, 5 clinic escorts formed YHF to ensure Alabama had a dedicated abortion fund to assist pregnant people in our state. Adopting the Alabama state bird yellowhammer’s vibrancy and swiftness in its name, YHF functioned first as a fully volunteer-based organization. In the summer of 2019, generous donations allowed YHF to hire full-time staff, now operating with a team of dedicated community organizers to help promote reproductive rights for the people in Alabama.
Yellowhammer Fund believes that protecting an individual’s ability to exercise their reproductive rights is an act of justice and dignity. As such, we not only center our work around the pregnant person seeking assistance in whatever form it takes but also strive to minimize gatekeeping within the Reproductive Justice sphere, ensuring that folks always get their needs met. We believe that pregnancy is not an act that occurs in a vacuum, and it is necessary to look beyond simply funding abortion to address reproductive inequities in our society, especially in the current climate.
We believe that all folks have the right to make decisions that are best for their health and their future. We believe in the right to parent, not parent, and the right to a safe, supportive environment. Thus, our definition of Reproductive Justice encompasses Birthing Justice, Racial Justice, Family Justice, and Economic Justice, all of which are threatened by the Deep South’s harsh abortion bans. Reproductive Justice includes everything from clean water to equitable education to suitable housing and community spaces. Reproductive Justice means supporting ALL pregnancy outcomes and ensuring that our neighbors are never in need. We use a Reproductive Justice framework to advance our mission through meeting the needs of our neighbors, mitigating harm caused by abortion bans, and advocating for long-term, systemic change. In alignment with our Reproductive Justice framework, we have structured our programmatic priorities under the following buckets of work: Community Education and Empowerment, Policy Advocacy, Development of Mutual Aid, and Legal Defense.
