Melinda French Gates Is Now Funding Reproductive Rights Initiatives
HuffPost
The philanthropist vowed to give $1 billion to organizations focused on women's rights.
Philanthropist Melinda French Gates announced Tuesday that over the next two years, her charity will dole out $1 billion to initiatives focused on women, including those working to protect reproductive rights in the United States.
The news, which French Gates revealed in a New York Times essay, comes a week before she’s scheduled to step away from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the philanthropy she started with her now-ex-husband, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, in 2000.
The contributions are a direct response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which wiped out abortion access for millions of Americans, she said.
“While I have long focused on improving contraceptive access overseas, in the post-Dobbs era, I now feel compelled to support reproductive rights here at home,” French Gates wrote. “For too long, a lack of money has forced organizations fighting for women’s rights into a defensive posture while the enemies of progress play offense. I want to help even the match.”
Funding will come through Pivotal Ventures, the philanthropy she launched in 2015.
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