Advancing Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights: Moving Forward post-the 2024 US Election

The 2024 US Presidential Election is already having profound impacts on the future of sexual and reproductive health and rights not only in the United States, but around the world. Politics have always had an outsized effect on SRHR issues – including abortion and contraceptive access, gender-affirming care, and HIV prevention and treatment services. More recently, the White House’s retreat from multilateralism and distrust of international human rights frameworks is resulting in rollbacks not only in the US but globally at an unprecedented speed. There is nonetheless room to catalyze a new generation of SRHR protections, advancements, and legal reforms. This panel will explicitly consider this political moment – discussing areas to push forward, lines to hold, and opportunities for global solidarity in SRHR.

This virtual event, “Advancing Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights: Moving Forward post-the 2024 US Election,” will take place on Wednesday, March 12th, at 9:00 am PDT/12:00 pm EDT/5:00 pm CET.

The dialogue will be moderated by IIGH Director Sofia Gruskin. 

The webinar is hosted by the USC Institute on Inequalities in Global Health. 

Speakers:

Sekai Chikowero serves as EngenderHealth’s Vice President of Programs where she is responsible for advancing the organization's program strategy and country operations to achieve global impact. She brings 30 years of program management experience in global health and multi-sectoral interventions, including family planning, maternal and child health, HIV/AIDS, gender-based violence, nutrition, malaria, small-holder agriculture and economic empowerment, and food security. Before joining EngenderHealth, Chikowero served as Senior Program Director and Portfolio Lead for East and Southern Africa at Pathfinder International’s SRHR programs. Earlier in her career, she worked as a country director and chief of party, leading country programs and multidisciplinary teams across East and Southern Africa. Chikowero is driven by the belief that continuously challenging ourselves and improving our processes increases the likelihood of influencing positive change and expanding opportunities for all. She is particularly passionate about creating opportunities for young people and women from disadvantaged backgrounds, empowering them to make informed choices and take charge of their own development. She holds a Master of Public Health from George Washington University, a Master of Science in Rural and Urban Planning, and a Bachelor of Science in Sociology from the University of Zimbabwe.

Francine Coeytaux has worked for over 40 years to promote comprehensive reproductive health services, including abortion, internationally and domestically. She has pioneered the use of acceptability research to give voice to women and include their perspectives in the shaping of public health agendas. In 2018 she co-founded Plan C, a groundbreaking campaign that shines a light on the over-medicalization and restrictions around abortion pills and advocates for a safe, effective self-managed option in the US. Best known for her work on new reproductive technologies, Coeytaux has focused on promoting comprehensive reproductive health services, including the development of emergency contraception, medical abortion, and microbicides. In addition to her international experience, Coeytaux helped found the Pacific Institute for Women’s Health and the Reproductive Health Technologies Project, and contributed to the creation of Planned Parenthood’s first adolescent outreach programs in San Francisco in the 1970s. From 1998-2001, she served on the State of California’s Advisory Committee on Human Cloning and in 2005 co-founded the ProChoice Alliance for Responsible Research. Coeytaux has a Master of Public Health from the University of California-Los Angeles and a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University.

Eszter Kismödi is an international human rights lawyer and Chief Executive of Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters. She worked as a human rights adviser at WHO, Department of Reproductive Health and Research (2002-2012), a senior human rights lawyer for UNAIDS (2016) and as a human rights lawyer for a number of United Nations agencies, including UNDP, WHO, OHCHR, and international organizations, such as World Association for Sexual Health. She is a visiting fellow at the Global Health Justice Partnership of the Yale Law School and Yale School of Public Health (since 2016), previously she was a Fellow at the Harvard Law School (2015). She is Executive Committee Member and Co-Chair of the Sexual Rights Committee of the World Association for Sexual Health (WAS) and member of the WHO Transgender Guideline Development Group. Recently, she has been the Co-Chair of the UNAIDS Reference Group on Human Rights and member of the Global Advisory Board on Elimination of Mother and Child Transmission of HIV and Syphilis of WHO and on the Board of GATE (Global Action for Trans Equality). She was a member of WHO’s Ethics Review Committee for several years. She is Hungarian and currently lives in Geneva, Switzerland.

Mitchell Warren has been the Executive Director of the AVAC since 2004. AVAC is the lead plaintiff in one of the two cases against the new US administration to re-start foreign assistance. Warren leads the organization’s overall program strategy and maintains strategic partnerships with AIDS service organizations, research and development agencies, policy makers, funders, the media and other health advocacy organizations. He has led the expansion of AVAC’s portfolio from HIV vaccines to include expanded advocacy across the R&D delivery of the range of biomedical prevention options; the development, with UNAIDS, of the Good Participatory Practice Guidelines (GPP) for Biomedical HIV Prevention Research; and the establishment of the Product Introduction and Access program. He was previously the Senior Director for Vaccine Preparedness at the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and also spent four years as Vice President and Director of International Affairs for The Female Health Company (FHC), the manufacturer of the female condom, where he directed efforts to design and implement reproductive health programs that integrate the female condom and led global advocacy efforts for expanded commitment to female-initiated prevention methods. Warren also spent six years at Population Services International (PSI) designing and implementing social marketing, communications and health promotion activities in Africa, Asia and Europe, including five years running PSI’s project in South Africa. 

Moderator:

Sofia Gruskin directs the USC Institute on Inequalities in Global Health (IIGH). She is USC Distinguished Professor of Population, Public Health Sciences & Law, Professor of Preventive Medicine and Chief of the Disease Prevention, Policy and Global Health Division at the Keck School of Medicine, and Professor of Law and Preventive Medicine at the Gould School of Law. She has published extensively, including several books, training manuals and edited journal volumes, and more than 200 articles and chapters.