THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT

Leslie Tarr Laurie

“I feel proud and energized with all that I was able to do to help move things along.”

Community Organizer, Educator, Activist. Director of Education and Outreach at Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania. Helped found the Family Planning Council of Western Massachusetts, now Tapestry Health, in 1973. President of Tapestry Health. President of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association. Past president of the Massachusetts Family Planning Association. Testified before Congress in support of reproductive health measures. One of five women in the United States Delegation to the First International Conference of First and Third World Women on Reproductive Health.

Interviewed by Judy Waxman, Oral Historian, December 2025