CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- When Loretta Ross ran the nation's first rape-crisis center more than 30 years ago, the center's staff put their personal phone numbers on the flyers they plastered around Washington, D.C. Counseling hotlines didn't exist for victims back then.

In those days, no one used the term "date rape," Ross said. When a woman was raped, the police and others asked one question first: Was she asking for it?

Today Ross, 56, is still working for what she calls reproductive justice. Founder and national coordinator of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective in Atlanta, she is scheduled to speak tonight<co Monday > at the Woman's Club of Charleston.

The event, a fundraiser for the reproductive rights group WV FREE, is scheduled for 7 p.m. and will honor Sharon Lewis, executive director of the Women's Health Center in Charleston. Tickets cost $50 each and will be available at the door.

The term reproductive justice was coined by a group of black women in 1994, Ross said. They felt abortion rights were linked to broader social justice concepts.

SisterSong, a coalition of women's groups around the country, believes that regulating abortion and other reproductive issues for women of color "is a central aspect of racial, class and gender oppression in the U.S.," according to its Web site.

"Part of the oppression ... is to start by not giving people control of their own bodies," Ross said.

Ross, a Texas native, is also the founder and former executive director of the National Center for Human Rights Education, which trains grassroots activists.

She views all her work through the lens of human rights. Issues such as the environment, health care, sexism and racism are linked because they impact people's ability to live in safe communities, she said.

"We're always seeking for the intersections," she said. "Things shouldn't be separated into neat silos."

In 1989, Ross got involved with the Center for Democratic Renewal, formerly known as National Anti-Klan Network. She traveled the country speaking to communities about hate groups.

At times, she gathered information on those groups by posing as a news reporter at their rallies.

"They are so eager for publicity that they start spilling their guts because you've got this reporter's notebook in your hands," she said.

She also helped run an "informal underground railroad" for people who wanted to leave hate groups.

"It was like a witness protection program, but without the support of government resources," she said.

Ross said she never set out to be an activist. She studied physics and chemistry at Howard University. But a series of personal events eventually triggered her involvement in women's issues.

"At 14, I became pregnant through incest," she said.

That was before the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion. She planned to give her baby up for adoption. When the nurses brought Ross her son, she knew she could not give him up.

She left for college at 16. At that time, parents had to give their children permission to use birth control, she said.

"My mother, being the Southern Baptist that she was, wouldn't," she said.

Ross got pregnant again. Although that was still before Roe v. Wade, abortion was legal in Washington, D.C.

"So I was able to have a safe and legal abortion at a hospital," she said.

Then, in her 20s, Ross used the Dalkon Shield, an intrauterine birth control device that sterilized her. She was one of thousands of women who sued the device's manufacturer.

Those experiences led her to the women's movement.

"Suddenly, I had words and explanations for all the things that had happened to me," she said.

Today, she believes people on both sides of the abortion debate can find common ground.

"The way we do it is through dialogue and respecting each other's positions," she said.

<I>For information about tonight's event, call 304-342-9188.

@tag: Reach Alison Knezevich at alis...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1240.