Leveraging the Wisdom of Communities for Reproductive Health
Join the Center for Global Health and Social Responsibility in celebrating International Women's Day 2023!
The right to make decisions about one’s own reproductive health is being dismantled in much of the United States. Many of our global partners have now surpassed us in their support of these rights. And yet, as reproductive rights have been challenged in recent years, groups across the globe have stood together and supported each other on their own terms, using the power of community and connection to get people the healthcare they desire.
In this panel discussion, join our group of invited community champions and experts to hear how they are expanding access to safe reproductive health through community networks. In this webinar, you will learn how everyday people can #EmbraceEquity around reproductive rights and advocate for safe, dignified, and supportive reproductive health.
Panelists:
Abigail Aiken, MD, MPH, PhD
Associate Professor, University of Texas at Austin
Lead Investigator, Project SANA
Abigail Aiken is an associate professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at UT Austin. Her research focuses on the impacts of laws and policies restricting access to abortion, including how and why people self-manage their own abortions outside the formal health care setting. She is currently the lead investigator on Project SANA, a research project that examines self-managed abortion in the United States. She frequently testifies on reproductive health issues, and provided expert testimony to the Irish Parliament on the 2018 abortion referendum. She has consulted for the CDC, WHO and UN on various reproductive policy issues. She completed her M.D. at the University of Cambridge, her MPH at Harvard University, and her Ph.D. at The University of Texas at Austin.
Verónica Cruz
Founder, Las Libres
Verónica Cruz Sánchez has been a feminist activist in Mexico for more than three decades. She has extensive experience promoting social and women's movements in Latin America. She has promoted the construction of accompaniment networks for safe medical abortion at home around the world. She is the founder of the Las Libres Center for Information on Sexual Health. She currently works as coordinator of the feminist advocacy area of Las Libres. She is the promoter of the binational Cross-Border Network between Mexico and the USA to build international solidarity and accompany safe abortions in restricted territories. She is the creator of the Safe Abortion Accompaniment Model and the Accompaniment School. She is a feminist originally from Guanajuato, Guanajuato, Mexico.
Johanna Hatch, RN, CNM
President, POWERS
Johanna Hatch, RN, CNM (she/her) has worked in the full spectrum of reproductive health care over the last 10 years in Dane County, WI. Her professional background includes advocacy, non-profit leadership, and clinical care. Johanna serves as the founding president and administrative and collaboration coordinator of Pregnancy Options Wisconsin: Education, Resources, & Support, Inc (POWERS).
Moderator:
Rahel Nardos, MD, MCR
Associate Professor & Director of Global Women’s Health, University of Minnesota
Rahel Nardos is an associate professor in the University of Minnesota Medical School and Director of Global Women’s Health within the Center of Global Health and Social Responsibility. Born and raised in Ethiopia, Dr. Nardos moved to the US where she earned her Bachelor of Science in biopsychology from Franklin and Marshall College and attended medical school at the Yale School of Medicine. She also spent one year as a staff surgeon at the Addis Ababa Hamlin Fistula Hospital and its multiple satellite medical centers in Ethiopia where she served women with childbirth injuries, and has since supported the first formal Urogynecology Fellowship program in Ethiopia. Dr. Nardos currently serves on the board of the Worldwide Fistula Fund as chair of the programming committee.
This event is part of the International Women's Day series: Embracing Equity and Justice in Reproductive Rights. The event series is co-sponsored by members of the Women's Health Equity, Empowerment, and Leadership (WHEEL).
Learn more about the IWD 2023 Event Series
CGHSR's event is also co-sponsored by the University of Minnesota Department of Chicano & Latino Studies and Department of Spanish & Portuguese Studies.
