Stephanie Kraft Sheley

Personal Introduction

Stephanie Kraft Sheley is committed to ensuring every individual's right to bodily autonomy, safe access to high quality birth care, including safe, supported and evidence-based practices in facilities and at home, and increasing the availability of midwifery services. She advocates for clients whose doctors and healthcare providers have violated their rights during pregnancy and birth. She supports midwives, doulas and other birth workers with their legal needs to ensure that their services remain available and affordable to birthing clients. Stephanie believes that bodily autonomy requires access to the full spectrum of reproductive healthcare. She is a fierce advocate for access to abortion care, with experience fighting anti-abortion harassment and helping young people access abortion through judicial bypass proceedings. Stephanie serves on the board of directors of the Birth Rights Bar Association, and contributed to a brief to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights Enforcement (OCR) arguing that OCR should use its authority to address obstetric violence and obstetric racism. ​She founded and directs Right By You, an organization that that helps Missourians navigate their state's fraught reproductive health landscape, and distributes free emergency contraception across Missouri. Previously, she served on the board of directors of the Emma Goldman Clinic in Iowa City, as a volunteer attorney with the ACLU of Illinois Judicial Bypass Project, text line volunteer with Jane's Due Process, advisory committee member for Take Root: Red States for Reproductive Justice conference, and legal intern at National Advocates for Pregnant Women. She trained as a full spectrum doula and childbirth educator with Birthing Advocacy Doula Trainings, and she has received training in breech birth skills from Breech Without Borders.