Through our legal services and support work, we see firsthand how policing, surveillance, and unjust laws target people because of their reproductive decisions.
Our approach is grounded in the direct experiences and needs of our clients. We deeply understand the reproductive injustices people face, what lawyers and advocates can do to help, and how to implement strategies for lasting change.
Legal services
We provide free, wrap-around, legal services for pregnancy, abortion, birth, and parenting across the country. We offer frontline support through our Helpline, legal funding through our Repro Legal Defense Fund, and criminal defense representation.
- Front-line legal support: The Repro Legal Helpline is staffed by lawyers and offers free and confidential legal support nationwide, no matter your age or immigration status. Whether someone needs a lawyer because they have a legal emergency or a question about the law, we can help. We work with other If/When/How services to make sure our callers get wrap-around support when they need it. Connect with our Repro Legal Helpline.
- Legal funding: The Repro Legal Defense Fund is a pregnancy and abortion legal defense fund that provides financial support, including bail and legal fees, so people have a real chance at fighting their charges. Our Repro Legal Defense Fund is staffed by former public defenders who know how expensive criminalization is financially and emotionally. We work with other If/When/How services to make sure clients get wrap-around support. Connect with our Repro Legal Defense Fund.
- Criminal defense and civil litigation: We have decades of experience fighting criminalization in court. Our lawyers offer free criminal defense and civil litigation for people who have been investigated, arrested, or charged with a crime because of their abortion, miscarriage, or stillbirth. We offer support for the lifecycle of a case, from advocacy to prevent charges, pre-trial practice, trial, and if needed, appeal. We work to get people free while setting legal precedent for the future. Connect with our litigation team.
Resourcing
We know the law alone cannot change the material conditions of people’s lives. To ensure our clients have the best defense possible, the Repro Legal Defense Fund provides holistic financial support to prevent criminalization, during cases, and beyond. In 2025 alone, we funded over $2.5 million in bail and other legal expenses for clients across the country. Where additional material support is available, all of our legal services connect clients to those resources.
Learn more:
→ Repro Legal Defense Fund
→ An organizer’s guide to pregnancy criminalization
→ [Podcast] There’s a bail fund for that
Policy advocacy
Our advocates have deep experience with state policy work and campaign organizing–many of us with direct ties to the communities we support. We draw on that experience in our partnerships with state advocates, following their lead while sharing with them what we have learned from fighting reproductive oppression in every state.
Working closely with our state partners, we provide testimony, legal analysis, messaging, and mobilization support to advance reproductive justice in the following issue areas:
- Ending the criminalization of people for their abortions or pregnancy losses: We draw on our experience with clients to reform and repeal state laws that have been misused to criminalize people for pregnancy outcomes. In partnership with state advocates we have successfully repealed all but one of the laws in the U.S. that make self-managed abortion a crime. These collaborations have also led to 8 states and D.C. enacting laws that prohibit the criminalization of people for their pregnancy outcomes.
- Advancing birth rights: We draw on our clients’ and communities’ experiences to advance proactive laws that advance birth justice rights to medical decision-making, privacy, and reproductive autonomy. Our policy work has supported the successful addition of protections for birth rights in ballot initiatives.
- Young people’s abortion access: We partner with young people, parents, and youth rights orgs to expand young people’s access to reproductive care by demanding an end to forced parental involvement in abortion care.
- Family justice: We partner with family justice organizations to end family policing. Together we advocate for policies that protect pregnant people from having their decisions, health, and outcomes in pregnancy punished, and from being separated from their families by the family policing (also known as “child welfare”) system.
- Economic justice: We work to increase economic justice for families, including increasing financial support for families using public benefits, and advocating for all insurance plans to cover the cost of abortion.
Learn more:
→ Read more about our issues
Research
Our ground-breaking research provides an evidence-based perspective on how reproductive criminalization happens, the harm it causes, and what tools can stop it. This research centers on the impact of state violence in people’s lives. We draw on this research to shape our legal services, resourcing, policy advocacy, and public education.
Learn more:
→ Self-care, Criminalized
→ State Violence and the Far-Reaching Impact of Dobbs
→ The Harms of State-Mandated Parental Notification for Abortion and Judicial Bypass
Public education and collaboration
We shift the public narrative about the far-reaching impacts of reproductive oppression and help people know their rights in a changing legal and political climate. We also offer training and technical assistance to movement partners and health care providers to expand their understanding of how they can interrupt state violence against pregnant people.
Learn more:
→ Request technical assistance if you are a health care provider, abortion fund, or repro justice advocate
→ Mandatory reporting obligations for health care providers
→ Guidance for journalists covering criminalization cases
Mobilization
We mobilize lawyers, law students, and advocates across the country to help meet the immediate needs of people experiencing reproductive oppression and push for change in their communities.
Learn more:
→ Get our updates in your inbox
→ Join the If/When/How Network
→ Learn about the RJ Fellowship
Join us
You can help us defend people in courts, capitols, and communities! Learn how to use your power to stop reproductive oppression whether you’re a lawyer, law student, or advocate.