Overview

Legal Momentum has long advocated for women’s unrestricted access to reproductive health options. Legal Momentum's sustained litigation against anti-choice protesters who assaulted women and medical staff, and blockaded abortion clinics nationwide, culminated in the case Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic, 506 U.S. 263 (1993), when the U.S. Supreme Court held that a federal law prohibiting private conspiracies to deny civil rights did not reach such activities. The negative ruling galvanized advocacy around the issue, leading to the passage of the 1994 of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, 18 U.S.C. § 248. The FACE law, as it is known, has led to a drastic decline in clinic harassment and violence. Legal Momentum has repeatedly joined forces with other groups to support poor women's right to choose when and whether to have children, both by defending Medicaid funding for abortion, and by fighting "child exclusion" policies that deny welfare benefits when women choose to have children.

Learn more about Legal Momentum’s litigation to advance reproductive justice and stop anti-choice violence.