Bill Baird is a reproductive rights activist who has won three Supreme Court cases giving unmarried persons the right to possess contraception and giving minors the right to abortion without parental consent. During the 1960s he was repeatedly arrested in New York, New Jersey, and Wisconsin for distributing information about birth control and abortion. His reproductive healthcare clinic was firebombed in 1979, and he later worked with the co-founder of Priests for Life to create a document calling for an end to inflammatory rhetoric and violence. His collection of published material includes many important works on the reproductive rights movement.

A psychiatrist, advocate for women's health care issues, and activist against domestic violence, Marjorie Braude advocated gender equality in medical research, sought to ensure women's access to abortions, supported the introduction of the abortion pill into the American market, and was editor of Women, Power, and Therapy. She also held a landmark conference on domestic violence in Los Angeles in 1994 and was an activist, writer, and speaker on women's medical and psychological issues.

A fervent supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment and of abortion rights, Crisp was an active member of the Republican Party, first on the local and then on the national level, for over twenty years. In 1977, she was elected co-chair of the Republican National Committee, and served until 1980. At the 1980 Republican Convention, she spoke out against the platform committee’s decision to oppose the Equal Rights Amendment and also protested the party's opposition to the federal funding of abortion. In 1989, after the Supreme Court restricted federal funding for abortion, Crisp co-founded and served as chair and spokesperson for the National Republican Coalition for Choice.

Patricia Gold was involved in the women's liberation movement in the Boston, Mass., area and active in a number of organizations, including the Massachusetts Organization to Repeal Abortion Laws (MORAL), local chapters of the National Organization for Women, and the Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus. A nurse in Watertown, Mass., she served on the Health Task Force of the Governor's Commission on the Status of Women and was co-chair of Boston NOW's Abortion and Birth Control Task Force.

A surgeon and national spokesperson for the pro-life movement, Jefferson became involved in the pro-life movement in 1970. She was a founding member of the Value of Life Committee (VOLCOM) in Massachusetts and subsequently helped formed Massachusetts Citizens for Life (MCFL), which was incorporated in 1973. MCFL's efforts led to the founding of the National Right to Life Committee (NRTLC), an umbrella organization comprising 50 state-run organizations and more than 3000 local chapters. Jefferson served on the boards and held prominent positions within each organization, including VOLCOM's board of governors; NRTLC president (1975-1978), and MCFL president (2007). She also served as president of the Right to Life Crusade, Inc., which she founded in 1978, and played an active role in several allied organizations, including Americans United for Life, American Life League, and Black Americans for Life. Some materials have been digitized and are available through the finding aid.

Author and activist Lawrence Lader has written extensively on abortion rights and family planning in the United States. He was founding chair of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (now the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League) in 1969 and was instrumental in the campaign that produced the 1970 New York State law legalizing abortion. Beginning in 1976 he served as president of the Abortion Rights Mobilization, and has worked for the introduction of RU 486 (also known as the “abortion pill”) to the United States.

The National Abortion Rights Action League was a national lobbying and membership organization devoted first to obtaining, and later to maintaining, the availability of safe, legal abortions. This collection contains correspondence, meeting minutes, and information about conferences in the years leading up to the Roe v. Wade decision. See also NARAL Additional Records and NARAL, State affiliates newsletter collection.

This collection includes pro-life movement newsletters and periodicals for which the Schlesinger Library holds three or fewer issues. Newsletters were created by state-wide pro-life groups, individuals, "crisis" pregnancy centers and religious groups between 1972 and 2009.

Barbara Rochelle has studied and collected material by and about the pro-life movement in the United States. This collection includes an Army of God manual detailing various ways of curtailing the functioning of abortion clinics (ca. 1992), pamphlets handed out at Atlanta (Ga.) area clinics (1988-1990), and an advertising supplement by the Human Life Alliance of Minnesota Education Fund (1997).

An advocate of family planning and legal abortion, Smith began her career in 1946 as a field worker for the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, where she later served as executive secretary. Moving to New York, she administered the family planning service at Mount Sinai Hospital (1953-55) and was executive director of the Human Betterment Association for Voluntary Sterilization (1955-64) and the Association for the Study of Abortion (1964-66). In 1967 she helped organize the National Association for Repeal of Abortion Laws (now the National Abortion Rights Action League), and in 1970, as a member of the Abortion Rights Association of New York, Smith worked to implement a new state law legalizing abortion.

The Society for Humane Abortion was founded by Patricia Maginnis in 1962 as the Citizens Committee for Humane Abortion Laws. The name was changed in 1964, and the society was incorporated in California as a non-profit educational organization in 1965. Endorsing "elective abortion," SHA supported the repeal of all abortion laws, sponsored symposia on abortion procedures for physicians, maintained a post-abortion care center, and was active in public education. It was disbanded in 1975.

Robert D. Spencer practiced general medicine in Ashland, Pa., and was willing to perform abortions before the procedure was legalized. This collection includes letters to Spencer from women or their husbands or boyfriends requesting his assistance in obtaining abortions, as well as some letters from women who had had abortions.

Stewart was an obstetrician, gynecologist, and advocate for women's access to emergency contraception and abortion services. The co-author of multiple books about gynecology and family planning, Stewart practiced medicine in Sacramento and San Francisco. From 1994 to 1996 she served as deputy assistant secretary for population affairs in the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, where she helped formulate and implement domestic and international policies on family planning. She later served as director of the Reproductive Health Programs at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation (1996-1999) and as co-director of the Center for Reproductive Health Research and Policy at the University of California, San Francisco (1999-2004). Perhaps best known for her research which established the efficacy and safety of the emergency contraceptive known as "Plan B," she also led the successful legal effort that allows qualified nurses and midwives to perform abortions in California.