Montgomery County has created a $1 million grant program to support abortion access, in a move to support the area’s abortion providers in the wake of Roe v. Wade‘s fall and fill a funding gap created by Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s decision to withhold available money.

The pot of money delivers on a plan Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich introduced in May, shortly after the Supreme Court draft opinion leaked, and works in conjunction with recently passed statewide legislation that made sweeping changes to Maryland’s abortion laws. The $1 million will be available for organizations that provide abortions, refer patients to abortion services, or offer wraparound services to individuals seeking abortions. The money can also be used to fund security measures to abortion providers, legal aid for organizations that are fighting court battles, and to fund start-up costs for new providers. Eligible organization can apply for grants — which can be up to $500,000 — online until Oct. 10.

“It remains the fact that in other jurisdictions, people are losing their rights, and the states around those people are gonna lose their rights. We know that people will travel for abortions,” Elrich said at a press conference on Thursday. “It’s incumbent on us that we make it possible for women anywhere to deal with this in the safest way possible.”

Elrich first announced his intentions to create such a fund in May, fearing that if Roe was overturned, the county’s current abortion provider network would soon be overwhelmed with out of state travelers seeking care. (Maryland, where abortion is protected by law, has long been a destination for individuals in states with more restrictive abortion laws.) At Elrich’s request, the Montgomery County Council then passed a bill stipulating the parameters of the grants, which will be distributed through the county’s office of grant management.

“We want to make sure that we’re a safe place for [patients seeking abortion] and their loved ones,” Elrich said.

This spring, bills in Maryland’s General Assembly reshaped the state’s abortion access by expanding who could provide abortion care. Previously, only physicians were allowed to perform abortions, but the Abortion Care Access Act now allows nurse practitioners, midwives, and physicians assistants to provide abortion care. The act, which went into effect on July 1, also requires most private insurance plans to cover abortion without cost-sharing or deductibles, and makes the state’s Medicaid abortion coverage permanent.

In order to build out the newly expanded pool of abortion providers, state lawmakers also passed a budget provision that set aside $3.5 million for the Abortion Care Clinical Training Program,  which would train abortion providers across the state. While the law stipulates that the state begin allocating that $3.5 million annually in 2023, lawmakers reached an agreement that would allow that money to be used starting in July 2022, in order to quickly scale up the state’s abortion infrastructure. Due to a budget quirk, however, Maryland Gov. Hogan isn’t required to release the money until 2023 — and he has vowed not to. State lawmakers don’t have the power to mandate the governor do otherwise, and their attempts at pressuring the governor — who has largely stayed away from abortion policy, although he is personally opposed to it — have been unsuccessful.

“This is just another example of how our current governor has really hung our counties out to dry,” said democratic Del. Jared Solomon, speaking at the press conference with Elrich on Thursday. “We’ve passed an incredible bill that was literally months and months and months and months of work. And not only did we pass the abortion access expansion bill, but we actually funded it in the year in which we passed it..and what did we have? We have a governor…who used his budget authority to say ‘I’m not going to allow this money to be released.'”

Abortion access is protected in Maryland by state law; in 1992, voters decided in a ballot referendum that early term abortion access would remain in place, even if the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The state also does not have a waiting period, although a parent of a minor must be notified before an abortion is provided (this may be waived at the request of a health provider), and abortions can only be performed until the fetus is “viable,” or it could survive outside of the womb. A fetus is typically considered viable around 23 or 23 weeks, but there is no universal consensus.

Elrich said the grant money should ease some of the burden on abortion clinics, by giving medical providers who have recently become eligible to perform the procedure under the new legislation the ability to ramp up their abortion services. Despite the state’s protections for abortion, about two-thirds of Maryland’s counties had no abortion providers before the expanded regulations, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

In a statement after Elrich’s announcement, Del. Ariana B. Kelly, a state delegate representing Bethesda who introduced the Abortion Care Access Act, praised the move as a “welcome follow-up” to the statewide legislation.

“This new source of funding is further proof that Maryland and Montgomery County continue to be leaders in protecting abortion access,” Kelly wrote in a statement to DCist/WAMU. “The grants announced today will support health agencies that provide comprehensive reproductive health care to those in need, as well as those organizations fighting legal battles on behalf of abortion-seeking patients.”

When asked Thursday if the funds will be available each year, Elrich responded: “Until we get a Supreme Court that re-establishes people rights, it’ll be there as long as it needs to be there — and hopefully with state supported, so the counties don’t have to carry all of the burden of this.”

Previously:
Montgomery County Executive Wants To Establish A $1 Million Abortion Access Fund
Maryland Lawmakers Push Hogan To Release Money For Abortion Training
What Does The Roe Decision Mean For The D.C. Region?