Colorado-based Cobalt Abortion Fund spent almost $2.5 million in 2025 helping people access abortions across the country.

Most of that money — more than $1.7 million — directly supported a patient’s ability to pay for a procedure. That’s an 84 percent increase from what it spent in 2024, Melisa Hidalgo-Cuellar, director of the Cobalt Abortion Fund, said in a press call Wednesday. The fund helped almost 4,000 clients pay for abortion procedures in 2025.

“This number here really reflects that abortion bans are keeping people from accessing the essential health care that they need in their own state,” Hidalgo-Cuellar said. “They’re being forced to travel, and as they’re forced to travel, their care is delayed and their care becomes more and more expensive over time.”

Image

The abortion fund is an initiative of Cobalt, a nonprofit Colorado abortion rights organization. The fund is the largest independent abortion fund in the state.

Among clients who received Cobalt funding for an abortion procedure, just under 48 percent were from Colorado, and just under 40 percent were Texas residents.

Cobalt spent more than $665,000 in practical support funds — which help people pay for travel, lodging, meals and child care expenses needed to access abortion care — to help just over 1,000 clients in 2025. That is less than the $1 million Cobalt spent on practical support in 2024. But Hidalgo-Cuellar said she anticipates that number will go back up in 2026.

“I do believe that our funding went down slightly in 2025 because of our increased collaboration with other abortion funds, especially with funds for Texas residents accessing care in New Mexico,” Hidalgo-Cuellar said.

The need for funding to support travel and other practical expenses is much higher in states with abortion bans. About 86 percent of Cobalt’s clients who needed practical support funding in 2025 were Texas residents, compared to about 6 percent of those clients being Colorado residents.

After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion in the Dobbs v. Jackson decision in 2022, Hidalgo-Cuellar said many people anticipated there would be an initial increase in demand for abortion fund support before it plateaued. But that has not been the reality, at least for Cobalt.

Cobalt’s total spending has grown every year since the Dobbs decision. In 2021, the last full year before the decision, the fund spent just over $200,000. In 2022, it spent about $740,000. Its spending has remained over $1 million annually since 2023, when it spent over $1.2 million. In 2024, Cobalt spent over $1.9 million.

Donors to Cobalt’s abortion fund include individuals and family and institutional foundations, Karen Middleton, president and CEO of Cobalt, said. The organization fundraises across the state to meet the continuously growing demand.

About 62 percent of Colorado voters supported Amendment 79 in 2024, which made abortion access a constitutional right in Colorado and allowed Medicaid and public insurance to cover abortion care. The Colorado Legislature approved a measure implementing the amendment and also passed several shield laws to protect providers as well as out-of-state patients. Every stateexcept New Mexico that borders Colorado, as well as Texas, has abortion restrictions.