Harriet Pilpel

Harriet Fleischl Pilpel (December 2, 1911 – April 23, 1991) was an American attorney and women's rights activist. She wrote and lectured extensively regarding the freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and reproductive freedom. Pilpel served as general counsel for both the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood. During her career, she participated in 27 cases that came before the United States Supreme Court. Pilpel was involved in the birth control movement and the pro-choice movement. She helped to establish the legal rights of minors to abortion and contraception.

Biography

Early life and education Harriet Fleischl was born on December 2, 1911, to Julius and Ethel (née Loewy) Fleischl in the Bronx. She had two younger sisters, Juliette and Ruth. She was hired by law firm Greenbaum, Wolf & Ernst following her graduation. Law professor Sylvia A. Law writes that Pilpel "was a brilliant legal tactician with a deep knowledge of the nuance of doctrine, but she was also acutely attuned to political opinion, organizational politics, the press, religious feeling, and the broad cultural forces that shape constitutional principles." Pilpel was also versed in matrimonial law and co-authored the 1952 book entitled Your Marriage and the Law with Theodora Zavin. She also represented publishers and writers in cases involving copyright law. Her clients included Betty Friedan, Mel Brooks, Billy Graham, Edna Ferber, Svetlana Alliluyeva, Jerome Kern, and Erich Maria Remarque.

Pilpel was involved with the pro-choice movement. In 1961, she argued on behalf of Planned Parenthood in Poe v. Ullman, asking the Supreme Court to reverse a Connecticut law criminalizing birth control. She wrote Planned Parenthood's amicus curiae brief for that case as well as that for 1965's Griswold v. Connecticut. Pilpel was influenced by ideas that the right to privacy upheld in Griswold could be extended to a woman's right to abortion. Alongside Aryeh Neier, Pilpel helped organize the campaign against New York's anti-abortion law. She argued in 1977's Carey v. Population Services International on behalf of a minor's right to acquire contraceptives without parental consent. In the 1950s and 1960s Pilpel also wrote a monthly column for Publishers Weekly entitled "But Can You Do That?" She appeared frequently on William F. Buckley Jr.'s television show Firing Line.

Selected bibliography

Personal life On June 15, 1933, she married social service executive Robert C. Pilpel. In 1987, Pilpel was widowed. She remarried, to New York Medical College administrator Irvin B. Schwartz on March 13, 1989. She died of a heart attack on April 23, 1991, in Manhattan. She was 79.

Her son, Robert Harry Pilpel, is an author.

Honors Pilpel was honored with a fellowship in NYU Law's Hays Program, the Harriet Pilpel-Planned Parenthood Fellowship.