Deborah Nye was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in 1949, the youngest of Frank and Georgia Nye’s three daughters. Nye’s mother was active in local women’s organizations such as the League of Women Voters and the Association of University Women and served several terms on the Cedar Rapids School Board. Nye graduated from Grinnell College in 1971 and enrolled in law school at the University of Iowa. She would graduate from the College of Law in 1987.

As a law student in 1973, Nye recalled that a male professor pronounced Roe v. Wade as “not very important,” but to Nye it was a turning point. She was already deeply involved with local reproductive rights activism. She volunteered at the abortion referral service out of the University’s Women’s Center (later the Women’s Resource and Action Center) and had attended a self-help lecture put on by Carol Downer, a feminist health activist who popularized cervical self-examinations. On the day that Roe v. Wade was decided Nye and several other women began planning to start a local women’s health clinic that would provide abortion services. This became the Emma Goldman Clinic for Women.

Nye volunteered at the Emma Goldman Clinic from 1973 to 1975 and was a paid employee from 1975 until 1987. She frequently represented the clinic for the press and the public. At various times she served on the executive committee and as the Abortion Service Coordinator and the Administrative Coordinator. Louise Noun interviewed Deborah Nye about her career at the clinic for her 1992 book More Strong-Minded Women: Iowa Feminists Tell Their Stories.

After graduating from the University of Iowa’s College of Law in 1987, Nye embarked on a law career in Phoenix, Arizona. She was an Administrative Law Judge from 2002 until her retirement in 2017.