Former ‘Roe’ attorney Gloria Allred on NDAs, empowering victims and a world without legal abortion

Before Roe v. Wade, attorney Gloria Allred got a back-alley abortion. She says it nearly killed her – and changed her worldview.

Gloria Allred
Photo courtesy of Allred, Maroko & Goldberg
Gloria Allred
Photo courtesy of Allred, Maroko & Goldberg

Former ‘Roe’ attorney Gloria Allred on NDAs, empowering victims and a world without legal abortion

Before Roe v. Wade, attorney Gloria Allred got a back-alley abortion. She says it nearly killed her – and changed her worldview.

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Back in the 1960s – before Gloria Allred became one of America’s most prominent women’s rights attorneys – she says she was raped at gunpoint. She became pregnant and had a back-alley abortion that nearly killed her.

“It did teach me a lesson,” Allred tells Art of Power host Aarti Shahani. “And the lesson is that abortion should be safe, legal, affordable and available.”

In conversation with Shahani, Allred explains how that traumatic life event changed her worldview and preceded her decades-long career in civil rights law (10:20). She explains why she uses a cheeky sense of humor to get what she needs (4:30) and how she’s represented some of the most famed names in women’s rights, including “Jane Roe” of Roe v. Wade and O.J. Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson (14:35). Plus, Allred defends a long-standing practice she’s been criticized for: negotiating non-disclosure agreements (26:20).

Gloria Allred and Norma McCorvey, aka Jane Roe
At left, Norma McCorvey a.k.a. Jane Roe, holds hands with her attorney Gloria Allred outside the Supreme Court on April 26, 1989. Allred represented McCorvey several years after the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court case. J. Scott Applewhite / AP Photo