Janet Benshoof, a lawyer who spent much of her career defending a woman’s right to an abortion, then expanded her work to champion causes for women around the world, including those raped in war zones, died on Monday in Manhattan. She was 70.

Her son David Benshoof Klein said the cause was uterine serous carcinoma, a rare and aggressive form of endometrial cancer.

“For there to be justice, peace and security in the world, there has to be equality of women in fact,” Ms. Benshoof said at a Google talk in 2008. “If women are always out of the boardrooms and the decision makers and the military, then you do not have the sustainable justice, peace and security that is our ultimate aim.”

Over 40 years, she pursued her advocacy at three organizations in New York City: as director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s reproductive freedom project and as the founder and president of the Center for Reproductive Rights and, most recently, the Global Justice Center.