Pat was an early radical abortion rights activist. Her positions are now common

Even in feminist history, Pat Maginnis does not quite command name recognition.

"She was not Gloria Steinem," says writer Lili Loofbourow, who profiled the early abortion-rights advocate in 2018. "She was not an attention seeker or a credit seeker."

Maginnis may have lacked a nose for the spotlight. She wasn't one for glamour — she was known to dress in clothes from thrift stores or even those she found on the street. And she employed confrontational tactics that forced the issue into the public eye.

"Her strategy was blunt, and I think that may have prevented her from being known as the activist superstar that she really was," Loofbourow says.

Years before Roe v. Wade established the constitutional right for a woman to terminate her pregnancy, Pat Maginnis advocated for unequivocal abortion rights through a variety of direct actions.