Tides’s mission has always been clear to us: we serve those who need abortions and are not reached by the other Massachusetts funds. Years ago, when we first came together, we sat in one of our living rooms and discussed who our community is. Who are the people we keep at the forefront of our minds while building this organization?

We had many answers to that question. QTBIPOC. Non-english speakers. Undocumented immigrants. Houseless folks.

Anyone who might face barriers white-led organizations weren’t thinking of were the people we came together to serve. People across the matrices of oppression and marginalization. Tides formed in order to build an organization that centered the voices of those it sought to serve—not the voices of donors.

In the years that have passed, we’ve organized ourselves and put in the work to make ourselves official…and Roe vs. Wade has been struck down by SCOTUS.

As such, our community hasn’t changed—but it has grown. As the newest abortion fund in Massachusetts, and as a group of people who came together with the mission of serving those that are not being reached, we consider every single person who might want an abortion and lives in a state where they cannot get one our community.

If it sounds idealistic to you—we disagree. In a state like ours, with the laws we have in place, with the amount of access created for abortion, it would be remiss for us to focus only on building up our community here. Borders are imaginary lines drawn across maps, anyway—it would go against our reasons for coming together to let them limit us now.

Massachusetts cannot rest easy in the knowledge of its wealth of funding, resources, and providers, plugging its ears to the cries of the rest of the country. We at Tides firmly believe the fall of Roe marks Massachusetts’s responsibility to the rest of the country: to share what we have in order to protect abortion access for everyone and anyone who wants one.

We are only four people currently, but however small we might be, we are not intimidated by the size of the task in front of us. In solidarity with the other three Massachusetts funds, we go into this fight in full confidence.

We have your back.