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 shes 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 Courts June 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens 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 womens rights into a defensive posture while the enemies of progress play offense. I want to help even the match.