Ann has actively fought for reproductive justice since she risked getting an illegal abortion in New York City in 1968, shortly after entering Yale Law School. By the time she graduated from the Law School in 1971, she had organized Women vs. Connecticut, which signed up thousands of women plaintiffs in a class action to challenge the constitutionality of Connecticut’s anti abortion laws. The class action, Abele v. Markle, won the right for women to bodily autonomy in the lower federal courts and those decisions were affirmed in 1973 by the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade.
Ann brought another lawsuit on behalf of poor women in Connecticut, who were being denied Medicaid payments for abortion, unless the State found the abortion to be medically necessary. This case, Roe v. Maher, was decided against poor women by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1977. Eventually, Connecticut and some other states decided to pay for Medicaid abortions without “medical necessity” restrictions. Then along came the Dobbs decision in 2022. Ann had joined the Board of GRR! months before the Dobbs decision, and she has continued her fight for reproductive justice with the award-winning podcast on Apple Plus called Roe v. Wade, which was produced by Slate and aired in June, 2022. Currently, she is strengthening GRR!’s presence in Northern California where she lives.
For 30 years (1981-2011) Ann served as a Deputy District Attorney in a county in California prosecuting major felonies, including child molest, rape, and murder, and was an active board member of the local Rape Crisis Center.