For nearly 20 years, Kate Michelman served as President of NARAL Pro-Choice America, catapulting the organization to prominence as the nation's premier reproductive rights group. Under Kate's leadership, NARAL Pro-Choice America transformed the political debate and positioned a woman's freedom to choose as a fundamental American liberty.

Kate was a close advisor -- and remains a close friend -- to former President Bill Clinton. She has worked closely -- and her counsel has been sought by -- many of the most powerful leaders in America, from Senators to Cabinet Secretaries.

Vanity Fair Magazine has named Kate one of America's 200 Women Legends, Leaders. A seasoned lobbyist and skilled political strategist -- Washingtonian magazine named Michelman one of the capital's 100 most powerful women and The Hill named her one of the top grassroots/non-profit lobbyists -- she has pursued a legislative agenda to keep abortion legal while making it less necessary and built NARAL Pro-Choice America into a dominant force in electoral politics at the state and federal levels. Fortune Magazine has described NARAL Pro-Choice America as "one of the top 10 advocacy groups in America."

Early in her professional career, Michelman was a specialist in early childhood development, with a particular emphasis on developmentally disabled children. Building on her work with special-needs children in rural Pennsylvania on the edge of Appalachia, she developed a model multi-disciplinary diagnostic treatment program for developmentally disabled preschool children and their families that now serves as a model across the nation.

Michelman, who first honed her organizing skills in the civil-rights movement, became concerned about reproductive freedom after her own humiliating experience with a pre-Roe v. Wade abortion in 1970, which required her to obtain the consent of the husband who had deserted their family as well as a hospital panel comprised entirely of men.

Prior to joining NARAL Pro-Choice America in 1985, Michelman was executive director of Planned Parenthood in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where she expanded the range of reproductive health services available in the area. She also trained medical students and residents in child development as a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Pennsylvania State University School of Medicine.

Michelman is married and has three daughters and five grandchildren.

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