Glenna Halvorson-Boyd

Glenna Halvorson-Boyd is an American abortion counselor and abortion rights advocate. She has worked in abortion clinics in the Southwestern United States since abortion was legalized nationwide in 1973 with now-overruled court decision Roe v. Wade. From 1984 to 1986, she was president of the National Abortion Federation.

Halvorson-Boyd and her spouse Curtis Wayne Boyd, an abortion provider, have been the target of violence because of their profession: their Dallas clinic was firebombed in 1988, their New Mexico clinic was destroyed in an arson attack in 2007, and in 2014 they were reported to have been monitored by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as they were considered possible targets of domestic terrorism.

Career Halvorson-Boyd has worked in abortion clinics since the legalization of abortion with Roe v. Wade (1973), working alongside her spouse Curtis Wayne Boyd, a physician and abortion provider of national prominence who helped found the National Abortion Federation, a professional association for the profession. The center was the first legal abortion facility in Texas to provide abortion care after the Supreme Court of the United States' ruling in Roe v. Wade. She served as the president of the National Abortion Federation from 1984 to 1986. The Fairmount Clinic was the target of a firebombing attack in 1988, and in a later incident, was broken into by protestors who chained themselves to clinic equipment. By 2000, her work entailed counseling at abortion clinics in Texas and New Mexico and conducting training for counselors and doctors.

The Albuquerque, New Mexico, abortion clinic at which the couple practiced was destroyed by arsonists in 2007, and they struggled to find a new landlord willing to rent to them to rebuild their practice. The Guardian reported in 2014 that she and her husband had been monitored by the Federal Bureau of Investigation due to the couple's status as possible targets of domestic terrorism. An advocate for abortion rights, According to Richard Freadman in Society, Halvorson-Boyd and Hunter describe the state of remission they live in as a "limbo". A San Francisco Examiner reviewer found the book to be a valuable resource to readers in a similar situation, despite having reservations about the authors' writing style.

With her spouse, Halvorson-Boyd wrote a memoir, We Choose To, published with Disruption Books in 2024. Kirkus Reviews writes that the work is a "well-crafted medical memoir exploring the nuances of abortion in modern American history."

Personal life Halvorson-Boyd is the daughter of Glenn Halvorson (19131995), who was born in South Dakota and lived in Modesto, California, and worked as a television repairman. She completed the licensed practical nurse program at Northern New Mexico Community College in 2004.