Kate Michelman has been a defender of reproductive freedom for over 35 years. First as executive director of Planned Parenthood in Harrisburg, Pa., and then as president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. Under her leadership, NARAL was named “one of the top 10 advocacy groups in America” by Fortune Magazine. She was named one of America’s 2000 Women Legends by Vanity Fair, the same year she addressed the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. Washingtonian magazine named her one of the 100 most powerful women in Washington, D.C.
In 2006, Michelman publicly flirted with a candidacy for the U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania. Her move put a spotlight on the need for Democrat Bob Casey Jr. to moderate a stern anti-abortion stance that was one plank of his platform. As she wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer at the time, applying the pressure of "principle" to the marquee candidate and dropping her own bid allowed Democrats to close ranks and ultimately defeat incumbent anti-abortion crusader and antigay mouthpiece Rick Santorum. Casey's victory was pivotal to the one-vote margin by which Democrats also retook control of the Senate and initiated oversight of GOP political abuses, including the rush to war in Iraq, corruption in the Department of Justice, and far-reaching curbs on overseas aid that deny family-planning services to poor women.
Among the many tributes to Michelman's leadership was the participation of former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun in a NARAL tribute to his legacy following his retirement from the bench. Blackmun, who authored the landmark 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade that extended a federal right to privacy to women seeking to terminate early-stage unwanted pregnancies, passed away in 1999. Michelman calls a visit to his casket during his public lying in state one of the most somber moments of her time in the nation's capital.
Michelman's 2005 book, With Liberty and Justice for All: A Life Spent Protecting the Right to Choose (Penguin), has been called “inspiring” by The Washington Post. In 2007, she told Progressive Victory, "I wrote it for three reasons, really. I did it to recount the experiences of my public career in a personal voice. I also did it to inspire ordinary people who value individual rights to take action on their principles," she added. "And finally, I did it to warn Americans that what we have fought hard to win and struggled to defend could be snatched from us if we don't stay involved and speak up, in politics and the law."
