With abortion stories like these, we finally have to admit — a woman's life is important, too.
This is the part that no one wants to talk about. But having the freedom to make a choice means nothing if you can't afford the choice you've made.
Grab your tissues.
The stories shared in this video are gripping and unforgettable — and there are thousands like them that we'll never hear. According to the Guttmacher Institute, in 2008, just one-third of privately insured U.S. women having abortions used that coverage to pay for their procedures; it is not clear how many of their plans offered full or partial coverage for abortion, or how many women were deterred from using their coverage because of concerns about confidentiality. Yikes.
Among women having abortions that year, methods of payment included private insurance (12%), Medicaid (20%, almost all of whom lived in the few states that use their own funds to cover medically necessary abortions), and the most common: paying out of pocket (almost 60%).
After hearing those stories, some of you may be crying, clutching your heart, and asking "Where can I donate?" (Right here.)
But a lot of you may be scratching your head (or perhaps clutching your pearls) and saying "Huh? These women give money to pay for other women to have abortions?" Yes. Yes they do. And you're not alone if you've never heard of such an organization. To be quite honest, I hadn't either until a few years ago. Abortion funds don't get much love and attention. In a society that still considers it groundbreaking to see a realistic depiction of abortion in a mainstream film, the idea of people actually paying for them like any other act of charitable giving is far outside of the realm of respectability. But so are a lot of the most valuable, necessary supports and interventions for women. So let's talk about it, shall we?
What is an abortion fund? And why is it needed? Especially in a world where, as so many pro-choice advocates say, ideally fewer and fewer women would be in the position where an abortion is needed? Well if the stories above didn't make it clear, Third Wave Foundation's Emergency Abortion Fund says it pretty plainly: Abortion funds exist to "prevent economic injustice from determining the reproductive lives" of women.
Boom.
To read more about abortion funds, check out FundAbortionNow.org.



A Generation Jones teenager poses in her room.Image via Wikmedia Commons
An office kitchen.via
An angry man eating spaghetti.via 



An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.
It's not easy seeing green.
Did she get superpowers?
Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.
Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.
At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.
Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.
- YouTube youtube.com
Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:
“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”
“You can just say you're a superhero.”
“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”
“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”
“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”
“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”
“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”
“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”
In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.
While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.