The SPIA Gender and Policy Network is proud to present its 2024 panel, “Health & Justice Post-Dobbs: Changing Geographies for Reproductive Care.” The panel will feature Rebecca Gomperts, visiting SPIA from her home in the Netherlands as the Dean’s Speaker.

SPIA’s Gender & Policy Network, in partnership with CHW, GSS, and Public Affairs, is hosting a panel discussion on the changing policy and legal landscape for reproductive justice in the United States. The panel will take place in Arthur Lewis at 4:30PM on Monday, 3/25 -- all undergraduate and graduate students, postdocs, researchers, and faculty members are invited to attend the panel. GPN will also host a reception for graduate students, researchers, postdocs, and faculty members immediately following the panel (RSVP required). 

Moderator

• Heather Howard, Professor of the Practice and Director, State Health and Value Strategies

Panelists

• Betsy Armstrong, Associate Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs
• Farah Diaz-Tello, Senior Counsel at If/When/How
• Rebecca Gomperts, Founder of Women on Waves and Aid Access
• Clarke Wheeler, Senior Policy Analyst at National Women's Law Center

Rebecca Gomperts, MD, MPP, PhD studied medicine and visual arts in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In 1999, she founded Women on Waves, a Dutch non-profit organization that uses innovative tools and campaigns like abortion ships, drones, robots, apps and hotlines that circumvent and challenge restrictive abortion laws, break the taboo, create awareness about the availability of abortion pills and access to safe abortions.

In 2005, she founded Women on Web, a telemedical abortion service. The service supports women living in countries where safe abortion is not available, to obtain information and access abortion pills. Scientific research in the outcomes of the abortions provided by Women on Web, has shown telemedical abortion are as safe and effective as clinical abortions. In 2018, she founded the telemedical service Aid Access also serving women living in the USA.

The last 5 years her focus has shifted towards initiating and coordinating the effort to make mifepristone 50 mg available as a weekly and on demand contraceptive.

In 2011, she completed a masters Public Policy at Princeton University and in 2014, she completed her PhD at Karolinska Institutet.

Rebecca Gomperts received many awards and recognition for her work and was named one of the global thinkers by Foreign Policy in 2015 and Times 100 list of most influential people of the world 2020 and Glamour women of the year 2022.