Renee Chelian

Renee Chelian is the Administrator of Northland Family Planning Clinics.

For more than three decades, Renee Chelian has been a passionate advocate for advancing and protecting women’s choices regarding pregnancy and birth control. As administrator of three Detroit-area women’s health clinics specializing in abortion and gynecological services, Chelian has helped set the standard for patient care and education.

Her career began long before abortion was legalized in the United States. In the early 1970s, Chelian was assistant to a Detroit-area physician, who, in addition to his regular practice, flew to New York each weekend to perform legal abortions. Chelian accompanied him, offering care and comfort to the dozens of women who arrived from Michigan, New York and parts of Canada. In 1973, after abortion was legalized nationally, Chelian worked at one of Detroit’s first abortion clinics. Then, in 1976, Chelian founded the Northland Family Planning Clinic in Southfield, Michigan. A second clinic, in the western suburbs of Detroit, now located in Westland, was opened in 1979 and an eastern suburban location was opened in Clinton Township in 1983.

Northland Family Planning Clinics, under Chelian’s active guidance, have become model centers for reproductive care. With a mission to offer patients a comfortable, safe atmosphere, Chelean beautifully adorns and keeps each meticulously clean. Care is structured so that patients are treated with dignity and respect. Staff receives ongoing education and training in women’s health options, counseling and informed consent and only the most qualified, caring and professional physicians are employed to perform gynecological and abortion care.

In addition to her administrative duties, Chelian is also an active force in women’s reproductive and civil rights. Serving on committees, task forces and boards of local, state and national organizations, Chelian’s voice has been heard from the halls of Congress to the protest lines that have formed in front of her own clinics. She is currently serving as a board member on the Michigan Abortions Rights Action League (MARAL), the MARAL Pac Board and the NOW State of Michigan Pac Board. She is serving as a board member to the Foundation to Preserve Access to Abortion and is past president of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers.

Chelian’s lists of accomplishments are many. She was named Feminist of the Year in 1989 by the Detroit Chapter of NOW, was voted on Michigan’s 25 Women of Business Owners of Distinction by the Greater Detroit Chapter of National Association of Women’s Business Owners in 1997, received the Annual Millie Award from Michigan’s Women’s Political Caucus in 1998 and the NOW Shero Award in 2000. In 1996, she was a Governor’s honor roll nominee for her volunteer work with the Children’s Leukemia Fund of Michigan. Chelian resides in Oakland County with her husband of 30 years and her two children.