Gloria Feldt

Before becoming the President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Gloria Feldt was a teen mother from Texas with three children. After finishing college, she taught in the Head Start program and became a Civil Rights advocate. In 1974, Gloria joined Planned Parenthood and advanced to affiliate chief executive of Texas, to affiliate chief of Arizona, and finally to president in 1996. As president, she fought for contraceptive equity legislation, now passed in 22 states, emergency contraception, medically accurate sex education, and safe, legal abortion.

Gloria is the author of The War on Choice: The Right Wing Attack on Women's Rights and How to Fight Back and Behind Every Choice is Story and her comments have appeared in the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, to name a few. She has been on the Today Show, Good Morning America, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, Hardball with Chris Matthews, and the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. In 2004, she was named Glamour Magazine's Woman of the Year. Vanity Fair dubbed her one of the top 200 Women Legends, Leaders and Trailblazers.

Source and Photograph: Planned Parenthood About Us

Meagan Petersen '07 (mpeterse@wellesley.edu)
Created: November 2004
Last Modified: December 2004
Expires: June 2005