Madison Woman Helps Fund Abortions

At all hours, strangers phone Anne Nicol Gaylor's Madison home, always desperate. The caller one recent morning was a middle-aged woman with a 14-year-old pregnant daughter. "What clinic will she be using?" asked Gaylor, 83, jotting down the response and the cost of a second-trimester abortion ($875).

"If we helped with $300, do you think you could find the rest?" Gaylor asked. After the call, Gaylor opened a checkbook for the Women's Medical Fund, a Madison nonprofit that has helped pay for abortions for 34 years. Gaylor has written every check for every abortion. This was No. 18,986.

Controversial figure Gaylor is well-known for leading the Freedom From Religion Foundation in Madison for decades. Less known is her work with the Women's Medical Fund, which she co-founded in 1976, the same year she helped start the foundation.

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