Update: A second public event has been added, also co-sponsored by Our Bodies Ourselves: “Systemic Violence or Informed Consent? The Politics of New Reproductive Technologies and Medical Experimentation in India” is the theme of the program at MIT on Tuesday, April 23, which will include the film screening and remarks by Sama’s co-founder, Sarojini N. The event will take place in MIT Bldg. 5, Room 217, at 7 p.m.

The rise of commercial surrogacy has led to numerous concerns and conversations involving women’s health and medical ethics. On Monday, April 22, Our Bodies Ourselves will sponsor a screening of “Can We See the Baby Bump, Please?” — a documentary film about commercial surrogacy in India that explores the ethical challenges.

The screening will take place at Boston University’s Bakst Auditorium at 5 p.m. and is free and open to the public. Co-sponsors include the Health Law, Bioethics and Human Rights Department of the School of Public Health and the student-led Health and Human Rights Caucus.

From film director Surabhi Sharma’s website:

The global reach of medical tourism and commercial surrogacy spawns a range of clinics and practices across big cities and small towns in India. Anonymous, often with limited choice, woman’s labour is yet again pushed into the background. A whiff of immorality, the absence of regulation and the erasure of the surrogate’s experience collude to produce a climate of callousness. May we see the baby bump please? meets with surrogates, doctors, law firms,agents, and family in an attempt to understand the context of surrogacy in India.

The film was commissioned by the Sama Resource Group for Women and Health in New Delhi (view Sama’s blog for more on the film and a recent study on commercial surrogacy).

Sarojini N., the director and co-founder of Sama, will attend the screening and discuss her organization’s recent research on surrogacy practices, and strategies to address medical malpractice and the exploitation of women hired to be gestational mothers.

In 2012, Judy Norsigian, OBOS founder and executive director, traveled to Kathmandu to lead a workshop with Sarojini and Renu Rajbhandari, founder of the Women’s Rehabilitation Centre, OBOS’s Global Network partner in Nepal, on the growing popularity of cross-border surrogacy arrangements. Their presentation included effective strategies that could be used to educate and empower women.

“Already a booming business in India, where estimates suggest that 25,000 couples a year travel to arrange surrogacy contracts and there are about 1,000 surrogacy centers, this practice is soon expected to extend to Nepal, where poor women with limited economic opportunities will likely be attracted by the prospect of earning money by bearing children for others,” wrote Norsigian.

Read about her experience and learn more about the growing market in cross-border reproductive health care.

While most birth control pills currently available in the United States are safe for most women, some newer pills that contain the progestin drospirenone have come under scrutiny because of an increased risk of blood clots. Birth control pills containing drospirenone include Beyaz, Gianvi, Loryna, Ocella, Safyral, Syeda, Yasmin, Yaz and Zarah.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced late last month that it would take another look at so-called third and fourth generation oral contraceptives, including those with drospirenone, and consider whether use of these drugs should be limited.

The agency also plans to review whether current product information is enough to properly inform women and their health care providers of the risks. The agency has also said, though, “There is no reason for any woman to stop taking her contraceptive” — a rather confusing message for women wondering if they should switch to other types of pills.

The EMA previously reviewed whether this type of drug (specifically Yaz) could be marketed for use in preventing acne, but decided it could not based on concerns about the clot risk; it factored in that if women who no longer needed contraception or no longer needed the acne treatment continued on the drug, they would be exposed to unnecessary additional risk.

The U.S. FDA also did a review of pills with drospirenone, and is requiring language about the higher risk of blood clots to be added to the labels. As we noted last year, women’s health experts, including OBOS, have concerns about that review, and about leaving these pills on the market when safer alternatives exist.

That’s a key point in considering pills with drospirenone. While the risk of clots is small, we know the risk is higher with these pills than with other oral contraceptives. As one expert testified before the FDA, “I don’t usually vote against choices, but this time I did. And the reason is because on the benefit side, I didn’t see any improved benefit over the existing available choices.”

In the Women’s Health Activist newsletter in spring of 2012, Amy Allina, program and policy director of the National Women’s Health Network, wrote:

The question for a woman is, what should she weigh these risks against? As some have pointed out, the blood clot risks of pregnancy are greater than those of drospirenone pills. Is that the right basis of comparison? The Network does not believe it is. There are other, safer, ways women can avoid the risks of pregnancy – including contraceptive pills that don’t contain drospirenone. Drospirenone pills don’t provide a unique benefit over other available contraceptive pills. We’re also concerned that most women using drospirenone pills are unaware that other contraceptive pills are safer.

The NWHN has asked the FDA to remove these pills from the market. Allina wrote: “We believe that women who are looking for contraceptive options to help them postpone or prevent pregnancy should not be unnecessarily exposed to a higher risk of blood clots when there are safer alternatives with the same benefits available.”

Taleen K. Moughamian, a women’s health nurse practitioner in Philadelphia, traveled to Armenia in the fall of 2012. Working with the Children of Armenia Fund, she conducted  health exams, including breast and cervical cancer screenings, and provided contraceptive counseling. The following account is based on her work and conversations with Armenian women.

by Taleen K. Moughamian

The differences between Armenia’s capital, Yerevan, and the rest of the country are vast. While Yerevan has most of the modern-day conveniences you could ask for, the villages I visited in the Armavir region have populations between 300 and 1,000, mostly comprised of women.

Their husbands have gone –- off to neighboring countries, especially Russia, to find work. They usually stay away for 10 months out of the year. Some men have even started new families in their work countries.

It was not uncommon to meet women who needed to be treated for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) because their husbands are having extra marital affairs while abroad. They are upfront about this, though it surprised me how openly they talked about it.

I heard so many of them say, “They are men. They have needs. What can we do?”

This has created a huge problem and is one of the reasons why STIs, including HIV, are on the rise in Armenia.

There is limited access to effective contraception, so the rate of abortion, which is legal up to 12 weeks, is high. Most of the women who seek an abortion are married, already have two or three children, and do not feel they can provide for a larger family.

Sex-Selective Abortions
For some women, this means having three or four or even 15 abortions over the course of their lives as they struggle to create a family they can support. The median number of abortions for women over 40 is eight, according to a 1995 study conducted at a Yerevan abortion clinic.

Sex-selection has also become a huge issue. Since women leave their homes and join their husband’s family after marriage, a son provides a source of security for his parents. I met so many women who have had multiple abortions because the sex of the child was not what they had wished; for more data, see this UNFPA report on sex selection in Armenia and this story in The Armenian Weekly.

If you look at recent family planning data, it appears the number of abortions is going down, but from what I observed, that is not necessarily the case. Rather, more abortions are going unreported.

Rise in Unsupervised Abortions
Women are using an over-the-counter medication called Cytotec (the brand name for misoprostol) to induce abortions at home without the supervision of a trained medical professional. Cytotec’s indication is to treat ulcers, but it also acts as an abortifacient. Fifty cents worth of Cytotec can induce an abortion, whereas a surgical abortion usually costs about $35-$50.

When used properly, Cytotec is very safe, even without clinical supervision. But it is most effective when used in combination with a second drug, mifepristone (see more on this below).

Women in the villages I visited were not familiar with the World Health Organization guidelines now used by women all over the world. (Note: Women on Waves offers guidance, based on the WHO research, on how to do an abortion with pills.)

Many Armenian women are therefore in a dangerous situation, as they are using Cytotec without the relevant information about its efficacy or side effects, which can range from an incomplete abortion to bleeding to death.

Barriers to Contraception
As part of my work with the Children of Armenia Fund (COAF), I counseled women on birth control options. This has been quite a challenge, as there are so many myths surrounding birth control, and it’s expensive for rural women. One pack of birth control pills costs about $15-20 a month in Armenia. For a village family barely making $100 a month, it is completely unaffordable.

Besides the cost and access issues, social factors also influence a woman’s reproductive health. Although many husbands are supportive, others do not allow their wives to use birth control.

Sometimes the mother-in-law gets involved, too. When a woman in Armenia gets married, she moves in with her husband and his mother. The mother-in-law is usually the matriarch of the family, so she has a lot of pull in decision-making, even when it comes to her daughter-in-law’s reproductive health.

Changing Patterns, Changing Lives
During my last week in Armenia, I met a woman who had come to her village clinic for an abortion. She had two children and this was going to be her fourth abortion. She told me that her husband wants to have another child, but that he’s an alcoholic -– has been since the day they got married –- and he beats her.

She doesn’t think it’s right to bring a child into this world when her life at home is so unstable, and yet she is completely dependent on him for financial security. Living in the village, there are very few resources for either of them to get any help.

Stories like this are difficult to hear; you quickly realize how vital organizations like COAF are to these women. COAF provides free screenings for breast and cervical cancer and free treatment for STIs. With the help of the UNFPA, I inserted intrauterine devices (IUDs) for free to eligible women. This provides them with one of the most effective forms of birth control for up to 10 years.

On my final day working with COAF, one of the women was so thankful that as soon as the IUD procedure was complete, she jumped up and gave me a big kiss. She had had six surgical abortions, and she could not remember how many times she had taken Cytotec to end her other pregnancies.

It amazed me how much the women opened up to me. They are yearning for accurate information and resources, and they are deeply grateful not only for the health care that is provided but for the conversations about their bodies and their health.

Some women may not change their minds about birth control right away, but I know they at least have the information they need to consider it, and sometimes that is enough to start changing attitudes.

Despite all the economic and cultural barriers, I believe things are changing for women in Armenia -– slowly, of course, but moving in the right direction. There is no reason why Armenian women should have to keep relying on abortions for family planning, or why they should be misinformed about their reproductive health.

My hope is that educating women about their health and family planning options will empower them to take control of future. At the very least, they know where and when to seek care if they need it.

Related: Learn more about OBOS’s partner in Armenia, “For Family and Health” Pan Armenian Association (PAFHA), and efforts to adapt and distribute women’s health information based on “Our Bodies, Ourselves.” The preface to the Armenian edition is available in English.
——

Ed. note about mifepristone and misoprostol:
Mifepristone and misoprostol are now frequently used together to produce what is called “medication abortion” for women who are less than eight weeks pregnant. The drugs are not identical and perform different actions. Mifepristone, often known by its manufacturing name RU-486, is almost always used for abortion or to end missed miscarriages. Misoprostol has wider applications and may be used in place of prostaglandins to create cervix softening prior to birth. It can also help prevent stomach ulcers that are caused when people take non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS).

Under the supervision of a health care provider, women choosing a medication abortion typically use an oral dose of mifepristone first, followed by either an oral or vaginal suppository dose of misoprostol several hours later. In slightly more than 90 percent of women, this induces abortion within two days, provided it is used in early pregnancy. Misoprostol becomes increasingly less effective in more advanced pregnancies, and other, more effective drugs may be chosen for pregnancies that are more than eight weeks along.

The different actions of mifepristone and misoprostol explain their effectiveness in inducing abortion. Mifepristone works to separate the placenta from the uterine lining, and it causes uterine contractions. Additionally, the drug has some effect on the cervix and may cause it to soften.

Women in Udaipur, eastern Nepal with WOREC founder Dr. Renu Rajbhandari (far left) and the OBOS Nepali booklets to which they contributed. Photo / Judy Norsigian

In early October, I had the honor of co-leading a workshop in Kathmandu on the growing popularity of cross-border surrogacy arrangements with two colleagues from the New Delhi-based Sama Resource Group for Women and Health and Dr. Renu Rajbhandari, founder of the Women’s Rehabilitation Centre (WOREC).

Already a booming business in India, where estimates suggest that 25,000 couples a year travel to arrange surrogacy contracts and there are about 1,000 surrogacy centers, this practice is soon expected to extend to Nepal, where poor women with limited economic opportunities will likely be attracted by the prospect of earning money by bearing children for others.

In some parts of India, women are now offered fees ranging from $5,000 to $7,000, amounts that represent up to 10 years of earnings for people in rural areas.

The workshop, hosted by WOREC, OBOS’s global partner in Nepal, brought together women’s right activists from across the country to better understand the growing market in cross-border reproductive health care, its implications for Nepal, and the most effective strategies to educate and empower women.

Surrogacy Legislation in India
Participants included two nurses from the Kathmandu-based IUI (intrauterine insemination) clinic, several health counselors, a psychosocial counselor for women with fistulas, a family planning coordinator, the editor of a quarterly women’s magazine, several members of Women’s Human Rights Defenders, a nursing professor, an advocate with Save the Children, and a staff person from a rural women’s radio station in eastern Nepal. Languages used during the workshop were primarily Hindi and Nepali, with English translation offered as needed.

Sarojini and Preeti, our colleagues at Sama, provided an excellent overview of surrogacy in India, including a description of assisted reproductive technology (ART) legislation now being hotly debated in Parliament. One provision in the controversial bill would require that a woman entering into a contract surrogacy agreement undergo an embryo transfer rather than be inseminated with the intended father’s sperm.

Since insemination would be much safer, many workshop participants felt that a choice should be offered. An embryo transfer places the woman at greater risk by exposing her to powerful hormones that prepare her body for the pregnancy and to surgical procedures required to physically transplant the embryo into her uterus.

The proposed law assumes that a woman using her own eggs will be more likely to change her mind at birth and decide she wants to keep the baby than a woman who becomes pregnant with an embryo created with another woman’s eggs. There is poor evidence to support this assumption.

Participants at the Kathmandu workshop on cross-border surrogacy arrangements.

Preparation in Nepal
By their very nature, commercial surrogacy arrangements are created by contracting couples and agencies whose primary interests typically do not reflect the needs and concerns of women recruited as gestational mothers.

This is why groups like Sama and WOREC are advocating for public policies that will protect gestational mothers and ensure they receive evidence-based information about risks and benefits in a manner they fully understand. Policies must also ensure follow-up care and effective recourse if things go wrong.

The women at the workshop want to be better prepared in case a similar bill is introduced in Nepal. Sarojini, Preeti and I shared practical information about the various ART techniques involved in surrogacy and explored, with our Nepali colleagues, ways to preserve the health and rights of women agreeing to be surrogates. Most participants were quite unfamiliar with the whole topic of ARTs and asked many questions about the medical, social and economic impacts.

Why Language Matters
We also screened two documentary films about surrogacy – Made in India, by New York City-based filmmakers Vaishali Sinha and Rebecca Haimowitz, and Would Like to See Baby Bump Please, a new film just released in India by Sama — and discussed the importance of using language sensitive to all the parties involved in a surrogacy arrangement.

For example, the term “reproductive tourism” carries the image of couples vacationing in their pursuit of parenthood. In most cases, these trips are stressful and a far cry from the typical tourist experience. Using alternative language such as “cross-border commercial surrogacy” is one way to avoid such innuendo.

Similarly, referring to a gestational mother as a “surrogate mother” or “gestational carrier” can belittle and objectify her central role as the woman carrying a pregnancy for nine months and then giving birth. Many at the workshop preferred the descriptive, less diminishing term “gestational mother.”

At the end of the workshop, we developed a number of recommendations for moving forward.

Meeting Local Activists
After the workshop, I traveled with Renu to Udaipur in eastern Nepal, where she introduced me to many younger women at the WOREC center, including some who contributed to WOREC’s set of six Nepali health booklets, recently adapted from Our Bodies, Ourselves.

I also visited a group of young women who are the sole staff for a radio station in Udaipur, where egg cartons provide the sound proofing in their recording studio. They frequently address women’s health topics in their programming and invite community conversations about sexuality, domestic violence and the environment.

Although I had met Renu briefly when she traveled to Boston for OBOS’s 40th anniversary symposium in 2011, the many hours of chatting while we drove over mountainous terrain cemented a special friendship I now treasure. I have a new appreciation of her remarkable leadership over the past several decades and was deeply impressed by her efforts to pass the torch to a younger generation.

A trip to a fairly remote mountain village was particularly inspiring. The women had successfully lobbied for village development council funds to create a small multipurpose women’s center. Though a bit run-down, it was getting a lot of use and clearly a sign of how effective some women’s groups have been over the past decade.

The provisional constitution for the country still has not passed, but its contents – including funding for legal abortion – offer great hope for the future of women’s reproductive rights and justice in Nepal.

This article was originally published in the winter 2012/2013 Our Bodies Ourselves newsletter. View the full newsletter.

By Eyitemi Mogbeyiteren

In 2011, three members of our outreach team were kidnapped in the Delta State of Nigeria. We were held captive for several weeks, during which we were repeatedly raped, and only released after a ransom was paid to the kidnappers. Soon after, we learned that all three of us had tested positive for HIV.

My name is Eyitemi Mogbeyiteren, and I work with Women for Empowerment, Development and Gender Reform. Our goal is to ensure that poor grassroots women in the South-West region of rural Nigeria have information on their bodies and health, adapted from the trusted book Our Bodies, Ourselves, so they make choices that protect their reproductive and sexual needs and dignity.

HIV is rarely talked about in our community, and people living with the virus are inevitably discriminated against and cast out by their friends and family. Over the years, our organization has worked hard to unravel myths about the virus — its transmission, prevention and treatment — and fight the terrible stigma and isolation faced by those infected.

But as more people become ill, we continue to see families despair and grieve as their loved ones die without medicines, care and support. Drugs cost approximately $15,000 per person in my community — an amount that is beyond the grasp of many people!

After being diagnosed, I experienced a lot of the same discrimination and isolation. I was shunned in my community and my family stopped speaking to me for a long time. With my own health failing, there were many moments when I felt I could not live, could not stand people saying things about me.

It felt like the end of the road, until I decided to raise my voice and change the fear and shame into something positive.

We are now expanding our HIV/AIDS outreach to include palliative care — care that relieves not only the physical but also the emotional, spiritual and socially generated suffering faced by a person infected with the virus. It is one of the most valuable services that can be offered to someone with terminal illness and their family. Unfortunately, it’s availability in my community is zero!

Using Our Bodies, Ourselves as our tool yet again, our plan is to train ourselves on this holistic and critical model of care, and bring our services to our women via support groups and home visits. We will also develop a training manual for other caregivers, including family and community health workers, so they can comfort their loved ones and clients.

And, to get word out, we will organize an “itinerant exposition” on board a bus. This vehicle — our Anti-Rape, Anti-Kidnap and HIV/AIDS Bus — will carry 12 activists around the country for 18 months, unleashing our materials, our knowledge and our passion. It will allow us to serve women beyond our community, to empower them with information on HIV/AIDS and self-defense skills to protect them from rape and kidnap.

And if we are able to raise the funds, we will distribute the drugs needed to prolong life — drugs that are the right of every human being to access, drugs that are impossible to find in my community.

OBOS is assisting Eyitemi and her colleagues at WEDGR with strategies, promotion and in-kind donations, and by generating funds for this critical work. If you would like to help with this effort, contact Ayesha Chatterjee at ayesha AT bwhbc.org.

This article was originally published in the winter 2012/2013 Our Bodies Ourselves newsletter. View the full newsletter.

The story of Savita Halappanavar, who died last month as a result of Ireland’s abortion ban, has sparked much debate over Ireland’s abortion laws and, in a broader sense, the issue of access to reproductive health care.

Savita went to a hospital in Ireland while experiencing severe back pain. The medical staff diagnosed her with miscarriage of a fetus with no chance of survival, but refused to perform an abortion because they detected a fetal heartbeat.

Several days passed before the heartbeat ceased and removal was allowed. But by this point, Savita had developed an infection that led to her death.

This is a tragic example, but one that unfortunately is quite predictable when women are unable to obtain legal abortion care. Abortion has been banned in the Republic of Ireland since 1983 by constitutional amendment, but traces back to an 1861 law. According to the Irish Family Planning Association, more than 4,000 women living in Ireland traveled to England and Wales for abortions in 2011, because the service is not legally available in Ireland.

Earlier this year, The Guardian reported that despite apparent declines in this number, more women may simply be disguising their home country, as “The number of women contacting a charity that helps people in Ireland seek abortions in Britain is set to double for the third year in a row.” (For more on the history of abortion law in Ireland, see this timeline, and “Ireland’s abortion ban: a history of obstruction and denial.”)

Here are some of the articles and analysis stemming from Savita’s death:

• Justice for Savita — Jessica Valenti gets to the bottom line for The Nation: “It’s not just our lives and health that are in danger, but our human dignity.”
• Hospital Death in Ireland Renews Fight Over Abortion – Douglas Dalby at The New York Times writes of a state of Irish politics that will not be entirely unfamiliar to U.S. readers: “Given the divisiveness of the abortion issue in Ireland, which has prompted two bitterly fought referendums, successive governments have avoided passing any legislation.”
• Death in Ireland is a Wake Up Call to Fight Bans on Later Abortion Here at Home – Susan Yanow at RH Reality Check contemplates the U.S. implications and concludes: “We have a sobering lesson to learn from Ireland — when doctor’s medical judgement is compromised by restrictive abortion laws, it is women’s health and women’s lives that suffer.”

Several writers have referred to the “X case” in covering this story. This was a controversial 1992 Irish Supreme Court case in which a 14-year-old girl expressed suicidal thoughts after being raped by a neighbor and becoming pregnant as a result. The girl planned to have an abortion elsewhere, but was prevented from doing so. The court eventually ruled that women have the right to seek abortions in life-threatening situations, including possible suicide.

Despite this 20-year-old ruling, Irish legislators have not passed a law to codify this right, leaving women in dangerously uncertain territory.

A Choice Ireland spokesperson explained:

Today, some twenty years after the X case we find ourselves asking the same question again — if a woman is pregnant, her life in jeopardy, can she even establish whether or not she has a right to a termination here in Ireland? There is still a disturbing lack of clarity around this issue, decades after the tragic events surrounding the X case in 1992.

Ireland’s Deputy Prime Minister Eamon Gilmore has said that the government would act “to bring legal clarity to this issue as quickly as possible.”

See also these additional commentaries on the failure to pass relevant laws after the X case to make abortions clearly legal in life-threatening situations.

Emer O’Toole writes at The Guardian about the struggles of pro-choice activists in Ireland, pointing to the culpability of doctors, legislators, journalists, and others in perpetuating the lack of justice in abortion laws. She issues an apology to Savita’s family that is also a call to action to supporters of abortion rights:

To her family, I want to say: I am ashamed, I am culpable, and I am sorry. For every letter to my local politician I didn’t write, for every protest I didn’t join, for keeping quiet about abortion rights in the company of conservative relations and friends, for becoming complacent, for thinking that Ireland was changing, for not working hard enough to secure that change, for failing to create a society in which your wife, your daughter, your sister was able to access the care that she needed: I am sorry. You must think that we are barbarians.

Related: Study Examines How Inability To Obtain Abortion Care Affects Women’s Lives

Globally, 47,000 deaths occur each year as a result of unsafe abortion, accounting for 13 percent of all maternal mortality.

Today, activists are calling attention to the need for safe, legal abortion in all countries, urging scrutiny of governments that restrict or forbid abortion.

The Global Day of Action for Access to Safe and Legal Abortion campaign site includes a public statement that reads in part:

[P]regnancy-related deaths and unsafe abortion remain a major public health problem in large parts of the world. Most countries that allow women to die in childbirth also allow them to die and suffer from unsafe abortions. Why? Because they do not value women’s health and lives, including when they are pregnant. This is what makes women’s right to safe abortion a public health and human rights issue.

The number of maternal deaths has declined substantially globally between 1990 and 2008, while the number of deaths from unsafe abortion has fallen to 47,000 per year in 2008. However, the proportion of all maternal deaths due to unsafe abortion has not been reduced but remained at 13% of all maternal deaths in that period. In 2008, of the 43.8 million induced abortions globally, 21.6 million were unsafe, 98% of them in developing countries. (Sedgh et al, Lancet 2012) And an estimated 5 million of those 21.6 million women each year had to be hospitalised for treatment of complications of unsafe abortion, (Singh et al, Lancet 2007) putting a heavy burden on scarce hospital resources (up to 50% of hospital maternity beds in some countries). [...]

Adolescent girls suffer the most from complications of unsafe abortion and have the highest unmet need for contraception. More than 40% (8.7 million) of the 21.2 million unsafe abortions in developing countries in 2008 were in young women aged 15–24 years. Of these, 3.2 million were adolescents aged 15–19 years, and 5.5 million were aged 20–24 years. (Shah, RHM May 2012)

The website also explains the clinical, legal and social health determinants that characterize what is meant by “unsafe abortion”:

• Illegal or legally restricted
• Dangerous method
• Untrained/unskilled provider
• Unsafe conditions
• Self-induced without help or information
• Incorrect usage (of pills)
• Little or no access to treatment for complications
• Stigma and fear and isolation
• Violence, rejection (by family, school, work) and murder, including of doctors providing abortion care
• Threat of prosecution
• Prosecution and imprisonment

Actions taking place around the globe are listed here by country. A letter has been written by young feminists to the United Nations, urging the UN to commit to women’s reproductive rights as human rights in upcoming negotiations. You can sign on to the letter via this petition site.

You can also keep up with the campaign on Twitter at @mybodycampaign and via the hashtag #safeabortion.

Women on Waves works to increase access to safe abortions for women in countries with restrictive abortion policies. The organization offers hotlines for information, details on obtaining medical abortions (drug-induced rather than surgical) via the web, and a map with summary info on each nation’s abortion laws and misoprostol (a medication that induces abortion) brand names and availability.

The organization also sometimes runs ship campaigns, in which women who can’t get abortions in their home countries ride out to international waters for medication abortions.

The group has put together a directory of Sexual Health Services Worldwide, with information on who to contact and where to go for abortions and other reproductive health services in countries around the world. In most cases, the directory information is provided in the main language of the country, and it sometimes includes information on abortion funds for those who need assistance paying.

Nations with extremely restrictive abortion laws are also included. For example, if you check out the listing for Ireland, where abortion is illegal unless a woman’s life is endangered, the site provides information on nearby countries a woman could travel to, information on organizations and clinics in those countries, and which nations might be cheaper for travel costs.

Reminder: To get involved in our current campaign promoting voting and reproductive rights in the United States, check out Our Bodies, Our Votes!

by Anna Forbes

Have you ever been part of an attempt to set a new record in the “Guinness Book of World Records”? Want to help break an existing world record while also helping to increase access to HIV prevention tools?

If so, your message can be featured in what we hope will become the world’s longest chain of paper dolls.

Universal Access to Female Condoms Joint Programme (UAFC) is working with CHANGE, Our Bodies Ourselves, and dozens of other organizations around the world to collect 30,000 individually completed paper dolls to display in one massive chain at the International AIDS Conference, scheduled for July 22-27 in Washington, D.C.

To participate, just go to Sign4FemaleCondoms.org by July 27 and write a message about why you think female condoms are important. Your message and paper doll will be included in the chain. Together, we’ll break the world record.

This extraordinary visual statement will illustrate the broad-based, urgent demand for female condoms that exists all around the world. Right now, only 1 percent of all condoms used worldwide are female condoms (FC). Most people either don’t know about FCs or have never used them because they are poorly promoted, expensive and/or unavailable. Meanwhile, more than half of all people living with HIV worldwide are women.

Female condoms are just as effective as male condoms in preventing HIV and pregnancy—and they allow women to protect themselves when male condoms aren’t being used.

Participation is free, it’s fast, and you will contribute to a powerful visual statement urging policy-makers and funders to invest more in making the FC, an under-utilized, highly effective HIV prevention tool, accessible to all women and men who need it.

Learn more about this project by visiting Facebook.com/zawadi.smartlove. Thanks for taking part!

Anna Forbes is an advocate, organizer, and writer who has worked in HIV/AIDS since 1985 and on women’s health and rights since 1977.  Now an independent consultant with an international client base, her work centers around women, HIV, gender, health, and rights.

While there has been considerable attention in the United States to political moves intended to reduce access to women’s health services, our neighbors to the north are also experiencing conservative-led cuts that affect women’s health. Six Canadian organizations focused on research and communication in women’s health have been told that their funding will be cut off next spring.

The six organizations forming the Women’s Health Contribution Program focus on issues including: the women’s health implications of the federal government’s regulation of toxic chemicals; the hyper-sexualization of girls; the inter-generational legacy of residential schools on Aboriginal women and their families; the need for trauma-informed counselling for women with addictions; a working guide for conducting sex and gender-based analysis in health research; and a critical analysis of funding for the HPV vaccine. The Program’s work has also focused broadly on how to best deliver prevention and health care programs to women and their children.

A press release from the Canadian Women’s Health Network describes dissatisfaction with and potential impacts of the cuts:

Staff and directors managing the centres and networks add their voices to the growing body of Canadians who are shocked and outraged by the short-sightedness of the federal government cuts to programs, services and the federal civil service. These cuts are in direct contradiction to the pledges regarding gender equality that Canada has made both in international commitments and to Canadians. Women are being hit particularly hard with these cuts, and, because the research being eliminated generated proactive, preventative strategies for health promotion, these cuts will cost everyone in the long term. The end of this work will be most strongly felt by the disadvantaged and the disempowered.

A spokesperson for Canada’s Health Minister has said that the organizations should compete for funding for individual projects via the $33 million budgeted for “gender health research” through the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR). Critics of the cut have suggested that the move is one more sign that the current administration, led by Conservative Party leader and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, is not interested in receiving the groups’ policy advice on women’s health (the non-CIHR groups being cut had a mandate to advise the federal government on policy).

An opinion writer in the Vancouver Sun calls the cuts “penny wise and pound foolish,” writing that:

Set adrift will be researchers and staff with specific expertise; lost will be the opportunity for better and more-effective care and prevention programs for two of the poorest and most vulnerable groups in Canada – elderly women and children growing up in poverty.

Federal budget cuts are also directly affecting programs targeting the health of Aboriginal women in Canada. The Native Women’s Association of Canada points out tremendous health disparities faced by Aboriginal women, calls on the government to rethink its decision, and directly addresses how the move further hurts a vulnerable population:

…more is needed to help local communities struggling with health disparities, but cutting the head off the national voice for Aboriginal women’s health shows a lack of commitment to address the issues that affect the most marginalized population in this country — a country that is envied by many other nations across the globe for its ‘great’ health care system and quality of life

If you’re online early tomorrow morning (Wednesday, March 14), head over to whitehouse.gov/live at 8:30 a.m. (EST) for a White House event commemorating National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.

According to a blog post by the Office of National AIDS Policy, the multi-agency event “will discuss the intersection of HIV/AIDS, violence against women, and gender related health disparities. Speakers and panelists will examine the juncture of these three important issues that impact women’s lives both domestically and globally.” Join the conversation on Twitter by following @AIDSgov and @PEPFAR and by using this hashtag: #NWGHAAD

Here’s the full agenda:
* Welcome and Event Overview
* Global Announcement
* Framing the Data: A Presentation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
* Research Update: A Brief Update on Ongoing Research by the National Institutes of Health
* Panel Discussion: Linkage between HIV/AIDS and violence against women; a discussion of these issues and gender related health disparities in the global/domestic context.
* Domestic Announcement
* Global and Domestic Synergy
* Closing Remarks

For more on how PEPFAR — the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief — is integrating the issue of gender-based violence in prevention and response programs, take a look at this detailed program guide. This introduction is an important statement:

There is growing consensus that HIV prevention programs must not only address the biomedical and behavioral factors involved in transmission, but also the underlying social and structural drivers that increase vulnerability. Social, political, and economic inequities fuel women’s and girls’ vulnerability to HIV and GBV. Likewise, stigma and discrimination, including against MARPs such as MSM, sex workers, transgender people, and people who inject drugs, make it impossible to prevent or treat HIV through biomedical and behavioral approaches alone. While the evidence base for both HIV structural prevention and GBV prevention are limited, strategies to empower women and girls, engage men and boys, and challenge harmful social norms show promise for addressing the underlying drivers of HIV and GBV, simultaneously reducing the risk and vulnerabilities to both.

Domestically, Kaiser Family Foundation last month released an updated fact sheet highlighting the impact of HIV/AIDS on women in the United States. The fact sheet provides current data and trends over time. In 2009 (most recent year), more than 290,000 women were among the approximately 1.2 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the United States. Women of color, particularly black women, are disproportionately affected, as are low-income women. And most women with HIV/AIDS receiving medical care have children under age 18.

Here’s a list of events around the country organized in connection with National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. The Centers for Disease Control last week launched Take Charge. Take the Test – a HIV testing and awareness campaign from Act Against AIDS. The campaign ill include radio, billboard and transit advertising along with a website and community outreach efforts in 10 metro areas where African American women are most affected by HIV.

International Women’s Day is traditionally marked as a day to celebrate women’s accomplishments and advocate for gender quality. The advocate component looms large today, considering the stepped-up attacks on women’s health and human rights. A sampling of stories and activities are featured below (most of which have been excerpted from their respective websites). Feel free to add your own links in the comments.

* Reproductive Rights and Justice in the United States: Democracy Now talks with Loretta Ross of the SisterSong Reproductive Justice Collective about the latest wave of legislative attacks on reproductive rights. Virginia has enacted a controversial law forcing women seeking abortions to have an ultrasound. Lawmakers in Georgia and New Hampshire meanwhile have advanced new curbs on abortion and contraception coverage. Georgia lawmakers are also considering a bill that would ban abortion after 20 weeks based on the highly contested notion that fetuses can feel pain at that stage.

“In Georgia we got tossed back to the 19th century,” Ross says. “Republican legislators really didn’t want to hear from women, they didn’t want to pay attention and presumed that they could tell us what to do with our bodies again.”

Plus: For a close-up look at the effect of anti-Planned Parenthood sentiment on health care for low-income women, read today’s New York Times story on the closing of women’s health clinics in Texas.

And for a very funny look at women responding to the ridiculous assaults on women’s health and human rights, check out “International Slutty Women’s Day: A Story in GIFs“ by the amazing Ann Friedman.

* Women of Courage Awards: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton hosted the 2012 International Women of Courage Awards Ceremony today. First Lady Michelle Obama, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues Melanne Verveer and other U.S. and foreign dignitaries also took part. Special guests this year included Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkol Karman, 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureates. The names and photos of this year’s honorees — a remarkable group of activists, many of whom are working on gender-based violence issues — are available here.

The International Women of Courage will now travel to 10 U.S. cities to engage with their American counterparts through the International Visitor Leadership Program. Cities include Bozeman, MT; Cincinnati, OH; East Lansing, MI; Indianapolis, IN; Jackson, WY; Kansas City, MO; Minneapolis, MN; Pensacola, FL; St. Louis, MO; Salt Lake City, UT; and Seattle, WA. Their visit to the United States began March 5 with a stop in Pittsburgh.

* Hollaback!: Support the efforts of women around the world fighting street harassment by sharing your story today at ihollaback.org. On March 22, the group will launch its new “I’ve Got Your Back” campaign.

* Women are the Fabric: A new exhibition of quilts in the lobby of the United Nations, a tribute to the enduring strength of women and a plea for the support and protection they need to take care of themselves and their communities, opens today. Women are the Fabric displays 20 quilts embedded with powerful messages and appeals for action. Some are cries of pain from women who have directly experienced sexual violence and massacres. Several express anger at the impact of war on women. One depicts the magic of a rainforest threatened by oil exploration. Together they convey the strength of women working together on shared concerns.

* Global Maternal Health and Family Planning: The International Museum of Women (IMOW) is presenting “Healthy Mama, Healthy Baby,” the newest gallery in the online exhibition MAMA: Motherhood Around the Globe. The gallery showcases creative works, profiles, statistics and online advocacy steps to help support maternal health worldwide.

According to the United Nations (2010), a woman dies every 90 seconds from preventable causes during pregnancy and birth. “Healthy Mama, Healthy Baby” examines the current state of maternal health, as well as what is being done to improve upon the world’s maternal mortality rate.

* Planned Parenthood also has a global campaign focused on the fact that millions of women worldwide want to plan their births but lack access to modern contraception. Just last month in Honduras, the Supreme Court upheld a decision outlawing emergency contraception — and now, any woman or doctor found using or distributing the “morning-after” pill could face criminal prosecution and jail time.

Do anti-women’s health attacks like this sound familiar? That’s because the same people behind the attacks on Planned Parenthood and the women that it serves are attempting to eliminate health care funding and increase barriers to reproductive health care for women and mothers in countries all over the world. Watch the video and tell your legislators today — Health Has No Borders!

* RH Reality Check has published an article by Dana Hovig of Marie Stopes International and Alvaro Bermejo of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance on the importance of integrating family planing and HIV services.

“It is 2012, three years before the 2015 deadline the world set for itself to reduce preventable maternal deaths and new HIV infections. If we are to reach this goal, we must act more boldly than we have up until now,” they write. “Women who are at risk of unplanned pregnancy are also at risk of HIV, and vice-versa so separation of these services no longer makes sense. The global health community must work to bring family planning and HIV services together – and quickly – to save women’s lives.”

* Also at RH Reality Check, Jessica Mack writes about the maternal health advocacy group Women Deliver, which this week named its “Women Deliver 50” — a list not of individuals, but of solutions. The list includes advocacy and awareness campaigns, educational initiatives, health interventions, and more.

“It’s not quite as sexy, true, but it’s refreshingly pragmatic,” writes Mack. “Recognizing individual change makers is important, but it is almost always the case that change happens thanks to many, many people. Why not focus on how that change happened (or is happening), so others can be inspired to think bigger and crazier, and do better work?”

* “Our Bodies, Ourselves” Worldwide: One proven solution: women learning about and sharing information about their bodies and health. Take a look at the global projects based on “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” which has now been adapted by women’s groups in dozens of countries. OBOS staff has facilitated the publication and in-country use of materials in more than 25 languages, in print, digital and socially interactive formats. Learn more about these efforts by viewing panels and discussions from OBOS’s 40th Anniversary symposium, which featured our global partners in Armenia, Bulgaria, India, and Senegal, among other countries.

Weeks after the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake decimated Haiti’s health infrastructure, Karen Feltham, a certified nurse midwife and nursing instructor at Binghamton University, traveled to Fond Parisien, Haiti, to provide support for pregnant and laboring women at a local birth center.

Two years later, she is returning — leaving today to spend 10 days working alongside the two local Haitian midwives that staff the HCM Maternity Clinic, a birth center that serves more than 2,000 women a year. While the midwives provide the best care possible under difficult conditions, outcomes for mothers and babies could be improved with additional training and support.

Karen’s trip is sponsored by Circle of Health International, which works with local health care providers in crisis- and disaster-struck regions to ensure access to quality reproductive, maternal and newborn care. Like all COHI volunteers, Karen is donating her time, and COHI is fundraising to cover the transportation to Haiti (about $800 in airfare and local travel) and room and board on the compound where the birth center is located (about $300).

Here’s where you come in. For as little as $10, you can help send Karen to Haiti. Want to donate more? Please do so! Numerous gifts are available as perks for donors who can offer $20, $35, $50 or more.

Training drills like the one shown (left) help ensure safer births in unsafe times. Women in areas of crisis or disaster often struggle to secure basic reproductive health care. The Fond Parisien Birth Center (right) serves more than 2,000 women a year, providing critical care.

It’s all part of the Get Karen to Haiti campaign that Our Bodies Our Blog and other bloggers involved in improving maternal health are participating in for the next two weeks. Hillary Boucher and Jeanette McCulloch at BirthSwell have more information about the collaborative effort.

Your donation can make a huge difference. According to COHI:

Birth Centers like the one at Fond Parisian provide a model of care for other areas in Haiti and around the world, where maternal mortality is at the highest rate in the Western Hemisphere, with 630 deaths per 100,000 live births (compared to 11 deaths per 100,000 births in the US).

The midwives at the Fond Parisien birth center have received training in supporting women in low-risk births, providing care in common emergencies, and are developing protocols for when to transfer to other emergency medical facilities. But unlike their peers in the U.S. and in other industrialized societies, they do not have access to the latest research or journals, conferences where they can share skills, or even family support.

Karen took a moment as she was preparing for her trip to talk with Our Bodies Our Blog about her birth philosophy and why she’s returning to Haiti now (see below). Her goals are specific:

* Review existing protocols for managing emergencies and deciding when to transfer to the local hospital. Provide clinical support and skill-building where it could improve outcomes for Haitian women and their babies.

* Run emergency drills using improved protocol for complications most likely to be seen at the clinic, including shoulder dystocia and postpartum hemorrhage.

* Improve monitoring processes so that the clinic can evaluate their existing protocols and make improvements based on evidence, not just anecdotal understanding.

We hope you’ll consider supporting Karen’s efforts in Haiti and visit COHI’s Facebook page to follow along on Karen’s journey. You can learn more about COHI’s efforts in Haiti on its website.

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Our Bodies Our Blog: You first visited Haiti after the earthquake. How did that experience affect you and your commitment to expanding access to evidence-based care?

Karen Feltham: Arriving in Haiti, especially Port Au Prince, was overwhelming. I kept thinking of how long the earthquake lasted, counting in my head and imagining the earth shaking and the buildings falling — the world changing in 30 seconds. What was that like? Homes become rubble, the living-dead. It has changed everything for me, in a way. Anything can happen, in any instant. It might sound funny, but I run through worst-case scenarios in my head and with my family. Where will you go? Where will we meet?

Witnessing the work of countless NGOs and volunteers was inspiring, as well as a bit maddening. There was (and is) really good work happening in Haiti. There are excellent providers and logisticians providing great, life-changing (and life-providing) services. And that is inspiring.

At the same time, I think that there is a feeling of, “Anything is better than nothing.” I have seen that lead to a neglect of clinical standards.

OBOB: Why are you returning now?

KF: The organization that I volunteer with (Circle of Health International) is completing their work there and turning over the operation of the clinic to a local organization. This is a nice opportunity to re-connect with midwife colleagues who I had worked with previously. My goals for the trip are to run emergency obstetric care management drills, review core competencies, and always to reinforce and encourage the midwifery model of care.

Also, skilled birth attendants at delivery (and fewer pregnancies) definitely lower the maternal mortality rate. The international community is expecting quite a bit from newly trained midwives, and midwifery is a tough job. In the United States, a licensed midwife is more likely to begin independent practice with the benefit of collaboration and experienced colleagues. And so, I feel a commitment to providing something similar to this midwife team.

OBOB: How does your birth philosophy inform your volunteer efforts?

KF: I absolutely believe in the power of kindness and how it can be transformative, even revolutionary. Think of what women bear, here and elsewhere — assault, abuse, submission. I can’t change a country’s infrastructure, health care and education policies. But I can listen. I can provide the most gentle pelvic exam and the most respectful atmosphere.

If my touch is the first that a newborn feels, then I promise to make it a gentle one. If my voice is the first that she hears, then let it be welcoming. This is what I can bring, a reminder that excellent clinical skills are essential, but that kindness is life-changing. At least that’s what I think, and it’s the best that I can offer.

OBOB: You’ve identified three goals for your time in Haiti. Can you give readers a sense of how those goals will be achieved?

KF: I’m not sure how each day will unfold. One must be very flexible in these situations. But I’m certain that each day will be very full. My volunteer partners and I will run through management of the obstetric emergencies; postpartum hemorrhage and shoulder dystocia — the “what-ifs.” It’s so valuable to run through what everyone does in these situations, and then do it again.

Also, each day will include conferencing with the midwives, which involves reviewing clinical cases and addressing whatever concerns that they might have, along with symptoms, diagnoses, and procedures they have questions about.

OBOB: Have you incorporated into your teaching at Binghamton any experiences or lessons learned from working alongside midwives in Haiti and Nicaragua?

I guess that every experience influences every other, even in subtle ways.

I teach at the Decker School of Nursing at Binghamton University in both the graduate and undergraduate programs. I love working with nursing students! They are amazingly good people. One of the courses that I teach is in global nursing. So many students are interested in really making a difference but don’t know where to begin. I try to share a bit of my own experience and encourage each individual student to find their own way. I believe in the ripple effect of good work.

Also, one thing I try to do intentionally with students is to blur the line between “us” and “them.” Haiti and Nicaragua are very far away, and it’s easy to think that the people, clinicians and patients are so very different from us. I try to refer to clinical cases that I have seen elsewhere and good clinical work and speak to the shared experience between provider and patients that happens everywhere.

Health care is what happens between midwife (and doctor and nurse) and patient. It doesn’t happen at the upper levels of the bureaucracy. It’s the thing that takes place between two people. And that is true in Ithaca, N.Y., Fond Parisien, Haiti and Managua, Nicaragua.

This article was recently published in OBOS’s winter newsletter. View the full newsletter.

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“I did training for more than 5,000 women across the country, and all their stories and all their experiences are in Our Bodies, Ourselves. Along with the stories and political activism, we started brokering power at the personal as well as at the political level. As of this moment, we have something to celebrate.”

Those words were spoken by Renu Rajbhandari, a prominent women’s rights activist in Nepal, during our 40th anniversary symposium, Our Bodies, Our Future: Advancing Health and Human Rights for Women and Girls, on Oct. 1. Co-hosted with Boston University, the event marked four decades of activism and celebrated our evolution from a small group around a kitchen table in the United States to a vibrant network of social change activists at the table in countries around the world.

Held in conjunction with the release of the ninth edition of “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” the symposium was also an opportunity to meet 12 of our global partners, including Renu, and listen to their extraordinary journeys of claiming and transforming this landmark book for the women and girls of their countries. Renu referred to the effort as a “transcreation.”

Many women talked about the cultural, political and social challenges to their activism and the relationships and networks they have built in order to effect change. (View videos from symposium, including the global panels.)

The book’s impact and legacy was described by many speakers, including local luminaries. In a video welcome, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick recalled how he was 15 years old when “Our Bodies, Ourselves” was first published; it was considered “racy,” yet filled with information that made him “a better person, and certainly a better partner.”

Robert Meenan, dean of Boston University School of Public Health, offered a formal welcome, followed by an all-star cast of women’s health advocates, including Byllye Avery, founder of the Avery Institute for Social Change and the Black Women’s Health Imperative, and Adrienne Germain, president emerita of the International Women’s Health Coalition. Marie Turley, executive director of the Boston Women’s Commission, brought greetings from Mayor Tom Menino, who had declared Oct. 1 Our Bodies Ourselves Day in the city of Boston.

These terrific presenters, and our energetic emcee, Jaclyn Friedman, executive director of Women, Action and the Media and a contributor to the new edition, spoke about the personal impact “Our Bodies, Ourselves” has had on their lives and the important role played by organizations like OBOS in realizing health equality and human rights, while at the same time reminding the audience of the sizeable challenges ahead.

They symposium paid tribute to the 14 OBOS founders who changed the world of women’s health 40 years ago. Sam Morgan Lilienfeld and Judah Rome, sons of deceased founders Pamela Morgan and Esther Rome, shared memories of their mothers – not only as feminist moms, but as powerful and positive role models.

“My mom viewed birth as an experience that has the power to change and define the life of a woman,” Sam said, “and her spirit of embracing and celebrating these major life events, which we sometimes may welcome and sometimes greet with trepidation, is something I’ve always admired.”

In his remarks about Esther completing the manuscript of “Sacrificing Ourselves for Love” just before her death in 1995, Judah said: “Watching my mom through the final months of her life was very painful for me, but it taught me how to live.” He told the audience he had hoped that her legacy would live on, adding, “I can tell from the energy in the room that it does.”

Our courageous global partners have used “Our Bodies, Ourselves” to develop and bring culturally unique health and sexuality information to their own communities. In addition to the challenges they encounter, they also discussed their success negotiating with power brokers – from men and matriarchs in the family, to religious leaders and heads of institutions.

Their stories of transformation, in Tanzania, Turkey, Japan, Israel, Serbia, India, Nepal, Senegal and Latin America, were reminiscent of the journey taken by OBOS founders 40 years ago. The parallel between the two groups of women was palpable and confirmed that not only has the book gone global, but it continues to inspire movement building by and for women and girls in every region of the world.

Loretta Ross, national coordinator of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, closed the day, firing up the audience by reminding everyone of the very real threats to women’s reproductive and sexual rights in the United States and around the world. Even so, she said the global partners’ activism and their use of the human rights framework made her “excited and optimistic” about the future.

As the day started with reminiscences of the 1960s and 70s, it ended with a freshly-stoked fire in the belly. OBOS is at the forefront of changing the lives of women and girls and will continue this work in the U.S. and around the world — into the next 40 years and beyond.

June Tsang is the program associate for the Our Bodies Ourselves Global Initiative

Did you miss the 40th Anniversary global women’s health symposium at Boston University back in October? If so — or if you just want to relive the day (yes, it was that awesome) — we’ve edited and posted videos from the symposium on YouTube. Take a look and feel free to post and share these presentations.

The list of speakers includes:

• Byllye Avery, founder of the Avery Institute for Social Change and the National Black Women’s Health Project, on the impact of “Our Bodies, Ourselves.”
• Adrienne Germain, president emerita of the International Women’s Health Coalition, on the challenges and opportunities for our health and human rights.
• Sam Morgan Lilienfeld and Judah Rome, sons of OBOS founders Pamela Morgan and Esther Rome, on growing up with feminist mothers.
• Sally Whelan, program director for the OBOS Global Initiative, discusses the efforts involved working with groups around the world that are adapting “Our Bodies, Ourselves” for their own communities.
• Ayesha Chatterjee, program manager for the OBOS Global Initiative, introduces the organization’s global partners.
• Loretta Ross, founder and national coordinator of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, delivers a rousing closing keynote filled with personal stories and political wisdom. Don’t miss this.

Plus there are welcomes by Massachusetts Gov. Patrick Deval, Robert Meenan, dean of the Boston University School of Public Health, and Judy Norsigian and Zobeida Bonilla, OBOS executive director and OBOS Latina health initiative coordinator. And it’s emceed by the one and only Jaclyn Friedman.

And, of course, there are the stories from OBOS’s global partners — women from Tanzania, Israel, Turkey, Senegal, Nepal, Japan, Puerto Rico, India, Bulgaria, Serbia and Armenia who shared their extraordinary journeys transforming “Our Bodies, Ourselves” into different texts and languages, sparking movements and change in their own countries. Along with U.S. participants — including myself and SPARK’s Dana Edell, they address the successes and challenges of the global women’s health movement in three panel discussions on YouTube.

Learn more about the symposium, which also celebrated the launch of the brand new edition of “Our Bodies, Ourselves.” Even those of us who expected great things came away more emotionally overwhelmed (in a good way) than we could have imagined. Hearing how groups literally created words for women’s bodies that didn’t exist, or how they dealt with harassment, threats and other obstacles to sharing accurate information about women’s reproductive health and sexuality, are stories that stay with you. We hope these videos can be used to educate and inspire.

Here’s Byllye Avery on women’s health and self-knowledge before the publication of “Our Bodies, Ourselves.” It sets the stage for everything that happened (and will happen) as a result.