Joyce Schorr
WRRAP Founder & President
Joyce Schorr is WRRAP’s Founder and President. Now in its 30th year, WRRAP remains a nationwide, independent safety net for low-income women and girls faced with ever-growing costs for abortion care services.
Joyce realized the horrors of illegal abortion back in 1969, when her best friend in college was forced to go undergo an illegal procedure. In 1982, while eating at a Carl’s Jr. restaurant, she was informed by picketers outside the fast-food chain that the owner, Carl Karcher, was taking money from his business and giving it to anti-abortion groups, whose ultimate goal was to once again make abortion illegal. She knew she must do something to prevent this from occurring.
From 1982 until 1988 she worked with the California Abortion Rights Action League on legislation and political races. She was then asked to help start the “Campaign for Choice” division at the National Council of Jewish Women, Los Angeles Section (NCJW/LA). While there, she worked with State Senator Charles Calderon to design legislation to stop residential picketing by anti-choice zealots. She also worked with Pacific Bell headquarters, in San Francisco, to expose the deceitful advertising by bogus abortion clinics, called Crisis Pregnancy Centers.
In 1991 Joyce proposed to NCJW/LA the idea of a fund for poor women who were unable to pay for a safe and legal abortion. Thus, the Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project was founded.
Joyce went on to work with U. S. Senator Barbara Boxer on what is now the Fifth Amendment to the Crime Bill. This amendment requires that every Department of Motor Vehicles across the nation enacts more restrictive guidelines for the dissemination of personal information from license plate numbers.
Recognized as a leader in the reproductive rights movement, Joyce Schorr has received awards for her work from the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights (RCAR), the prestigious “Woman Who Dared Award” from the National Council of Jewish Women, and the “2002 Courage Award” from the Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles.