Michelman, Kate

A key figure in the pro-choice movement, Kate Michelman served as president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, the largest pro-choice advocacy group in the United States from 1985 to 2004. During this period, she emerged as one of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington, D.C. She has advised and campaigned for many political candidates, sought to defeat Supreme Court nominees who threatened to overturn Roe v. Wade, and worked to defeat a wide range of legislative attempts to deny or restrict women's access to safe and legal abortion.

Michelman was born in New Jersey in 1942 to an upwardly mobile Catholic family. From a very early age, she demonstrated a passion for politics and social justice, but it was personal experience that first led Michelman to ...