Crusader with a checkbook helps women fund abortions

Crusader with a checkbook: Anne Nicol Gaylor helps women fund abortions: At all hours, strangers phone Anne Nicol Gaylor's Madison home, always desperate. The caller one recent morning was a middle-aged woman with a 14-year-old pregnant daughter.

'What clinic will she be using?' asked Gaylor, 83, jotting down the response and the cost of a second-trimester abortion ($875). 'If we helped with $300, do you think you could find the rest?'

After the call, Gaylor opened a checkbook for the Women's Medical Fund, a Madison nonprofit that has helped pay for abortions for 34 years. Gaylor has written every check for every abortion. This was No. 18,986.