Mayday Exposed: Inside The Shadowy Leftist Network Pushing Abortion Pills In Red States

Shortly after a draft Supreme Court decision striking down Roe v. Wade leaked, three politically connected friends came together to form a new “charity” to promote abortion pills in states that ban them. 

The group, Mayday Health, sponsors stunts across the country that instruct women how to defy pro-life state laws. Just a few weeks ago, it caught the attention of Kentucky’s attorney general, who is now suing the company for flying a banner over the state fair advertising illegal abortion pills.

Mayday’s actions often catch the eye of legacy media outlets, but the complex web of liberal money backing the enterprise has managed to remain a mystery, until now. Tax documents obtained by The Daily Wire reveal that Mayday’s dubious activities are funded with millions of dollars from a cadre of influential leftist nonprofits and some of the most prominent liberal billionaires in the country, including George Soros.

The founders of the New York-based Mayday include a transgender-identifying former Biden administration official named Olivia “Liv” Raisner, who now goes by Leo Raisner; Democrat speechwriter Sam Koppelman; and entrepreneur Nathaniel Horwitz. The trio, former roommates in Williamsburg, are all closely linked to Hunterbrook, a liberal publisher that openly aims to game financial markets with its stories. 

Mayday says its purpose is to provide “reliable and accurate health information” on “reproductive health medications” including “abortion medication” and “gender affirming care,” according to the tax documents. It purports to receive over 73,000 visits per day to its website and to have reached “over 45 million people” through its campaigns. 

Mayday did not respond to request for comment.

Who’s Funding Mayday?

Tax filings from 2022 and 2024 show that Mayday’s efforts are powered by a who’s who list of liberal activists and organizations.

Among the funders is the New York-based Soros Economic Development Fund at the Open Society Foundations, an entity infamous among conservatives for its founder, leftwing billionaire and Democrat megadonor George Soros, and its support for liberal immigration and soft-on-crime initiatives. 

The Soros Economic Development Fund gave Mayday $150,000 in 2024, according to tax records. 

The same year, the Soros Economic Development Fund gave $1 million to Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine “to provide malpractice insurance to shield providers enabling telehealth abortion access” and $195,000 to National Women’s Health Network for the purpose of creating a new insurance company to “cover the independent providers of telehealth-related abortion services to those in states where abortion is not legal.”

Mayday launched in a large part thanks to the Hopewell Fund, which is linked to one of the most infamous dark money networks in the country, Arabella Advisors. The Hopewell Fund told The Daily Wire it was Mayday’s fiscal sponsor before the abortion group broke off to become independent in 2023.

As the fiscal sponsor, the Hopewell Fund was able to process tax deductible donations for Mayday before the organization officially became its own nonprofit. Run by the former chief of staff for New York Attorney General Letitia James, the Hopewell Fund disclosed that it funneled $1,586,219 to Mayday for the fiscal year ending December 2022. 

Credit: Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP via Getty Images.

That fiscal sponsorship came when filings from Mayday showed its total revenue for its first year came in at $2,800,250. 

“Hopewell Fund is proud to support Mayday’s work to provide people with information about safe, legal reproductive health care, including medication abortion,” the organization told The Daily Wire, adding that it complied with all legal requirements. “We stand with organizations working to expand and protect reproductive rights.”

Hopewell, which has disbursed $600 million to liberal groups since 2015 and whose staff make frequent contributions to Democrats, would go on to funnel $768,240 to Mayday in 2023. 

Tax records indicate that Hopewell has served as a pass-through for donations to Mayday for the Ford Foundation, another massive nonprofit that funnels millions to leftist organizations. 

Ford Foundation filings from 2022 and 2023 show that the organization routed $500,000 total to Mayday through the Hopewell Fund. The money was designated for “corp support” for Mayday and to “raise awareness of safe reproductive health options and advocacy to protect healthcare providers.” 

Mayday’s own 2023 filing, which was obtained by The Daily Wire, notes a $250,000 donation from the Ford Foundation. 

The Ford Foundation, which funds a plethora of leftist groups, has a history of funding abortion groups directly and through dark money groups. It routed $800,000 in 2021 through dark money group New Venture Fund for “core support” for the All Above All Reproductive Justice Coalition to expand “abortion access.”

Another major Mayday donor who apparently used a pass-through organization is abortion activist Phoebe Gates, the daughter of billionaire Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. Phoebe, a major Democratic donor and outspoken abortion supporter, gave Mayday $100,000 in 2024, according to tax records obtained by The Daily Wire. 

Phoebe Gates: Credit: Photo by Kimberly White/Getty Images for TechCrunch.

Gates designated the funding through Global Impact, a Washington, D.C.-based charity adviser and intermediary that has routinely routed other funds to pro-abortion groups. In previous interviews, Gates acknowledged that she gave millions to so-called “reproductive health” groups, but did not specify how much and to what groups. 

Mayday has received other funds through similar donor-advised charity groups, including at least $2.1 million through the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund and another $10,000 from the Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust. Those platforms enable donors to anonymously send funds to nonprofits. 

Other major nonprofits that have donated to Mayday in the last three years include the Gottesman Fund ($150,000 between 2022 and 2024), the Educational Foundation of America ($200,000 between 2023 and 2024), the Lisa and Douglas Goldman Fund ($300,000 between 2023 and 2025), the Surgo Foundation US ($650,000 between 2024 and 2025), the David and Lucile Packard Foundation ($600,000 between 2023 and 2025), the George Kaiser Family Foundation ($75,000 in 2023), and the Mimi and Peter Haas Fund ($125,000 between 2022 and 2024). 

Many of these organizations have radical pro-abortion initiatives and maintain ties with the shadowy world of abortion pill distribution. 

For example, the Gottesman Fund in 2024 donated to the Yellowhammer Fund ($200,000) and the Brigid Alliance ($200,000), both organizations that cover abortion related travel. Additionally, it gave $200,000 to If/When/How Lawyers For Reproductive Justice, a leftist organization fighting for “reproductive” justice. 

The Maryland-based Educational Foundation of America, a charity started by the co-founder of textbook giant Prentice-Hall, funds a plethora of abortion causes, including the pro-abortion investment group Reproductive Health Investors Alliance. 

The same year it gave to Mayday, it wrote a $100,000 check to the Hopewell Fund routed to the Reproductive Health Accountability Fund, a Democrat-aligned group that engages in pro-abortion voter registration and mobilization campaigns. It also routed another $100,000 through the Hopewell Fund for “resources for abortion delivery general operating support.”

The Surgo Foundation US is led by Oliver Haarmann, the German financier and reported beau of actress Reese Witherspoon. Haarmann’s ex-wife Mala Gaonkar, a major donor to the Democrat aligned Made In America PAC, also runs the fund.

Each of these groups, which The Daily Wire reached out to for comment, helped fund Mayday’s mission of promoting the abortion pill in restricted states.

What is Mayday?

Mayday Medicines (doing business as Mayday Health) was incorporated in Delaware on May 23, 2022, according to business records. That came just 21 days after Politico published a draft of the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe v. Wade and return abortion law to the states.

The organization is based in New York City, where Democrats have passed a “shield law” stipulating that it will not cooperate with law enforcement attempting to arrest individuals who ship abortion pills into states where they are prohibited. 

Mayday’s website highlights its various campaigns, including Three for Freedom, a guide to obtaining mail-order abortion and birth control pills run by influencer Dr. Jennifer Lincoln. 

One of the organizations promoted by Mayday Health is Abuzz, which promises “fast” and “discreet” abortion pill shipping to all 50 states.

“Packages arrive in 2-5 days. Medications are shipped in a plain mailing envelope,” Abuzz’s website says. The cost of the pills is a sliding scale between $0 and $145, and “providers do not require a phone call or video visit” typically when requesting the pills, which are known to have dangerous side effects, including death. 

Abuzz allows people to stockpile abortion pills and encourages them to lie to medical professionals if experiencing complications from undergoing an abortion. 

“The treatment for a miscarriage and abortion are the same, so you can just say something like ‘I’m bleeding but it doesn’t feel like my usual period. I’m afraid something is wrong’ or ‘I’m pregnant and bleeding. I’m scared there’s something wrong’ and you should get the care you need,” its website says.

It also encourages young girls to get abortions without parental approval. 

“In some states there are laws that make it difficult for young people to access abortion. If you’re under 18, the resources below can help you access abortion even if you don’t have support from your parents,” Abuzz says. 

Mayday also promotes groups like At Home Abortion, which boasts that it can provide “abortion pills online anywhere in the U.S.” in a “plain mailer” in two to four days. There’s also Plan C, a radical organization funded by the Lisa and Douglas Goldman Fund that documents what activist groups provide abortion pills with no questions asked. 

In addition to promoting abortion pill providers, Mayday pushes multiple “gender-affirming care” organizations including QueerMed, the Black Trans Travel Fund, and Elevated Access. QueerMed provides cross-sex hormone treatments to adults and kids through telemedicine while Elevated Access gives free plane rides to people traveling for transgender procedures. 

Who’s Behind Mayday?

The founders of Mayday — Olivia Raisner, Nathaniel Horwitz, and Sam Koppelman — have deep roots in Democrat politics. 

Before starting Mayday, Raisner worked for Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 presidential campaign before becoming President Joe Biden’s traveling content director in 2020. She went on to take a similar role in Biden’s administration at the White House Office of Digital Strategy. 

Raisner targeted crisis pregnancy centers in a 2022 video, “exposing” how employees of an Indiana center encouraged her to keep her baby and offered her financial support after she lied and told them she was pregnant. 

That was before she identified as transgender and underwent gender surgery, according to Assigned Media. She then did another investigation of therapists who encourage gender-confused individuals to embrace their actual identity. 

Raisner started Mayday with Horwitz and Koppelman in 2022. In 2024, she became the group’s executive director and earned a $174,000 salary, according to tax filings.

“We kept hearing from groups, activists, advocates that abortion pills were going to be the future in a post-Roe era, but that very few people knew about them,” Raisner told Time Magazine. “A lot of groups couldn’t take on the risk of spreading the word.”

Koppelman also spent time writing for former Attorney General Eric Holder, New York billionaire Michael Bloomberg, and surrogates for the Biden-Harris campaign.  

Raisner, Koppelman, and Horwitz are all linked closely to leftist journalism platform called Hunterbrook, where Horwitz is the CEO, Koppelman is the publisher, and Raisner is a senior advisor. The publication is a journalism model that attempts to make money off of playing the market based on stories they write on various companies, saying the money will be used for activism. 

“Hunterbrook Media investigates and then publishes. Hunterbrook capital invests based on those findings to fund news without ads or paywalls. Hunterbrook law then partners with litigation firms to seek justice for people who have been harmed,” the company says. 

Its roster of advisors includes ProPublica CEO Paul Steiger and Washington Post executive editor Matt Murray.

Hunterbrook also did not respond to request for comment.

Mayday’s Battle Against Red States

Kentucky’s lawsuit against Mayday is not the first time the organization has faced legal problems. It fought off a subpoena from Mississippi after it put up billboards in the state following the fall of Roe, and it recently won a victory in South Dakota after a federal judge appointed by Biden blocked a state law targeting groups like Mayday. That followed an initial settlement when Mayday agreed to remove abortion pill ads following action from Attorney General Marty Jackley.

Mayday has maintained its efforts are protected by the First Amendment and that it is only providing information.

Many red states have grappled with how to deal with a flood of abortion pills flowing freely across their borders after Roe was overturned. Some estimates appear to show tens of thousands of unborn children are still being aborted in states where medication abortions are technically illegal.

Some pro-life activists have urged the FDA to remove guidelines allowing the abortion pill to be sent through the mail, while others have pushed for challenges to shield laws in states like New York that have blocked Republican attorneys general from taking action.

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