Three months before she died, Cecile Richards launched a new organization. In October 2024, the former Planned Parenthood president and face of the U.S.’s reproductive rights movement debuted Abortion in America, a group that promised to share abortion stories—one of the most powerful tools for humanizing the toll of anti-abortion laws. “The only thing people respond to and remember are stories,” Richards, also a leading figure in Democratic politics, said at the time.
In the nearly 10 months since Richards died from brain cancer at 67, her Abortion in America cofounders have kept her last project going. Today, Fortune is the first to report a next chapter for the organization: a litigation arm called Amplify Legal, led by Molly Duane, the Center for Reproductive Rights attorney who argued the Texas Supreme Court case Zurawski v. Texas (and appeared in a documentary of the same name).
The practice will focus on individuals who are harmed by abortion bans. While many reproductive rights attorneys cite constitutional violations to challenge anti-abortion laws, this group will also rely on negligence and consumer protection laws. Their cases will pose questions such as: If a patient loses their fertility because a hospital refuses to provide reproductive care in an emergency, should that hospital be responsible for that patient’s future IVF bills? If a woman is forced to continue a pregnancy against her will in a state where abortion is banned, should that state be required to provide support for the child?
In many of these situations so far, neither state actors nor health care systems or providers want to shoulder responsibility. “Someone needs to be held accountable for these harms,” says Duane, who aims to “think creatively” about the law. It’s a growing field; another Center for Reproductive Rights alum Julie Kay recently launched Reproductive Futures, a firm with similar goals.
Many of the 300+ people who have told their stories with Abortion in America have also asked for legal services. “Sharing your story publicly is one important way to prevent what happened to you from happening to anyone else,” says Lauren Peterson, who alongside Kaitlyn Joshua co-founded Abortion in America with Richards and worked closely with her for a decade. “Bringing a lawsuit is another very concrete way to do that.”
With this announcement, Peterson is becoming the organization’s CEO. She says it would have been beyond Richards’ “wildest dreams” to do something so ambitious in the organization’s second year. Richards’ hope with Abortion in America was to transcend partisan politics by making abortion stories human stories. As that battle extends to the courtroom, Peterson is demonstrating what she learned from her years with Richards. “I’m so grateful to not just be sitting in my house feeling furious about what’s happening, but to actually have an opportunity to do something about it,” she says.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
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"If I don’t file a complaint, then what message does that send to all Mexican women?"
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