Janet Benshoof, lawyer who pursued abortion rights for women, dies at 70
She helped launch the ‘morning after’ pill
Adapted from a story by The Washington Post’s Harrison Smith.
Janet Benshoof, a human rights lawyer who campaigned to expand access to contraceptives and abortion, leading organizations that advocated on behalf of women from the mainland United States to Burma, Iraq and Guam, where she was once arrested for protesting the most restrictive abortion law in America, died Dec. 18 at her home in Manhattan. She was 70.
Proclaiming the motto “Power, not pity,” she acquired a reputation as a fierce presence in the courtroom — as a litigator for the American Civil Liberties Union, she argued sex education and abortion cases before the Supreme Court — and as a frank, even funny guest on news programs such as “Good Morning America” and “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour.”
Her life
- Born in Detroit Lakes, Minn., on May 10, 1947.
- B.A. in political science from the University of Minnesota, graduating summa cum laude in 1969.
- Graduated from Harvard Law School three years later, where she encountered a female lawyer for the first time. There, she also developed a friendship with future Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
- At Harvard, co-founded the Harvard Women’s Law Association and met her husband, Richard Klein, who became a law professor. Their marriage ended in divorce.
Her family
Survivors include:
- Husband of six years, Alfred Meyer of Manhattan (Ginsburg officiated their wedding)
- Two sons from her first marriage, David Benshoof Klein and Eli Klein, also of Manhattan
- Sister
Her work
Ms. Benshoof worked for South Brooklyn Legal Services, filing class-action lawsuits on behalf of low-income clients in New York, before joining the ACLU in 1977. She left the organization 15 years later, during the “year of the woman,” taking her entire staff with her in what ACLU Executive Director Ira Glasser described as a “dead of night” departure.
Weeks later, she established what was then known as the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy.
It’s now known as the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Her legacy
In one of Ms. Benshoof’s most enduring achievements, the center effectively launched the use of the “morning after” pill as an emergency contraceptive, filing a petition to the Food and Drug Administration in 1994 that asked for companies to label birth control pills as postcoital contraceptives.
She also founded the Global Justice Center to defend clients that included abortion providers facing bomb threats as well as rape victims in war zones.
