Nancy Northup

Nancy Northup is the President of The Center for Reproductive Rights,in New York City. The Center is a reproductive rights organization that uses constitutional and international law to secure women's reproductive freedom including abortion rights in over 45 countries.Under her leadership, the Center helped win Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, a Supreme Court case considered the most significant case won by the reproductive rights movement since Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992.

Ms. Northup was born in Kokomo, Indiana and grew up in New Texas, California and New York. She graduated from Allendale Columbia School in Rochester, New York. She then graduated magna cum laude from Brown University in 1981 and Columbia Law School, where she was a Kent Scholar and Managing Editor of the Columbia Law Review. She lives in New York City. Northup is married to Jim Johnson, who is currently running to be New Jersey governor.

Ms. Northup was the founding director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. From 1989 to 1996, she served as a prosecutor and Deputy Chief of Appeals in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.

She served as a law clerk to Alvin B. Rubin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans. Ms. Northup holds adjunct appointments at NYU Law School and Columbia Law School where she has taught courses in constitutional and human rights law.