From 1979 to 1984 Gill Kent was deeply involved in the British women's movement, particularly the women's health movement, and played a pivotal role in the defeat of John Corrie's anti-abortion bill of 1979-1980.

Kent was a member of the National Abortion Campaign (NAC) National Steering Committee and a founding member of the Campaign Against the Corrie Bill (CAC). At the same time, she worked for the Birth Control Campaign and Trust and was assistant administrator of the Parliament-based Co-ordinating Committee in Defence of the 1967 Abortion Act (Co-ord), working weekly in the House of Commons with pro-choice MPs. This put her in a position to link the campaign in the House with the women's movement-led campaign in the country at a time when Co-ord members believed the bill was impossible to defeat. They were, of course, able to defeat the bill and preserve abortion rights.