Chalker was a vocal critic of United States policy towards Iran, and in 1979 she was arrested along with other activists for hanging a "U.S. Imperialism Get Your Bloody Hands Off Iran" banner on theWashington Monument.[2] She traveled to Tehran as a member of the "Send the Shah Back—Hands Off Iran Delegation" in support of theIranian Revolution and theoccupation of the United States embassy in Iran.[3][4] After her return to the United States, she and Eileen Schnitger (a fellow member of the Feminist Women's Health Center) disrupted the Women's National Powerlifting Championships while wearing "Send the Shah Back" t-shirts.[5][note 1]
Chalker's books includeThe Complete Cervical Cap Guide,[6]Overcoming Bladder Disorders, andA Women's Book of Choices: Abortion, Menstrual Extraction, RU-486.[7] She has also writtenThe Clitoral Truth, aboutgenital anatomy and ways to enhancesexual responses.[8][9]
In 1993,Le Anne Schreiber writes inThe New York Times aboutA Woman's Book of Choices, that "there is one incontrovertible fact of abortion in America: for more than a century, American women's access to safe abortions has been controlled by doctors and legislators. In defiance of that pattern, Rebecca Chalker, an abortion counselor and the author of a number of popular medical books, andCarol Downer, a lawyer and the executive director of the Federation of Feminist Women's Health Centers, have issued a declaration of independence."[7]
Chalker is a professor atPace University in New York City and continues to lecture on women's health andsexuality issues.[10]
^The return of the deposed shah,Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, to stand trial in Iran was one of the key demands of the Iranian students who had occupied the embassy and held its staff hostage.
