Susan F. Wood is an American public health professional. She is director of the Jacobs Institute of Women's Health at the Milken Institute School of Public Health.
Woods graduated from Rhodes College in 1980. She earned her PhD in biology from Boston University in 1989, through the university's Marine Program at the Marine Biological Laboratory. [1] She was a researcher at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. [2]
From 1995 to 2000, she was science advisor to the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues. [3]
From 2000 to 2005, she was Assistant Commissioner for Women's Health of the Food and Drug Administration. [3] [4] She resigned over delays in approval of the morning-after pill. [5] [6] [7] [8]
Wood is a professor at George Washington University. [9] [10] [11] She advises women to have advocates go to the doctor, to address women's health bias. [12]
Emergency contraception (EC) is a birth control measure, used after sexual intercourse to prevent pregnancy.
Mifepristone, also known as RU-486, is a medication typically used in combination with misoprostol to bring about a medical abortion during pregnancy and manage early miscarriage. This combination is 97% effective during the first 63 days of pregnancy. It is also effective in the second trimester of pregnancy. It is taken by mouth.
The United States is a global outlier among developed countries on the issue of abortion, with the subject being divisible in American politics and culture wars to an extent not found elsewhere. There are widely different abortion laws depending on state.
Kathleen Sebelius is an American politician who served as the 21st United States Secretary of Health and Human Services from 2009 until 2014. As Secretary of Health and Human Services, Sebelius was instrumental in overseeing the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Before becoming secretary, she served as the 44th governor of Kansas from 2003 to 2009, the second woman to hold that office. She is a member of the Democratic Party. Sebelius was the Democratic respondent to the 2008 State of the Union address and is chair-emerita of the Democratic Governors Association. She is CEO of Sebelius Resources LLC.
Frances Kathleen Oldham Kelsey was a Canadian-American pharmacologist and physician. As a reviewer for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), she refused to authorize thalidomide for market because she had concerns about the lack of evidence regarding the drug's safety. Her concerns proved to be justified when it was shown that thalidomide caused serious birth defects. Kelsey's career intersected with the passage of laws strengthening FDA oversight of pharmaceuticals. Kelsey was the second woman to receive the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service, awarded to her by John F. Kennedy in 1962.
The National Women's Health Network (NWHN) is a non-profit women's health advocacy organization located in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1975 by Barbara Seaman, Alice Wolfson, Belita Cowan, Mary Howell, and Phyllis Chesler. The stated mission of the organization is to give women a greater voice within the healthcare system. The NWHN researches and lobbies federal agencies on such issues as AIDS, reproductive rights, breast cancer, older women's health, and new contraceptive technologies. The Women's Health Voice, the NWHN's health information program, provides independent research on a variety of women's health topics.
Americans United for Life (AUL) is an American anti-abortion law firm and advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1971, the group opposes abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, embryonic stem cell research, and certain contraceptive methods. The organization has led campaigns and been involved in judicial actions to prevent the passage and implementation of legislation that permits abortion, or may increase prevalence of abortion, including successfully defending the Hyde Amendment in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America is a 501(c)(4) non-profit organization that seeks to reduce and ultimately end abortion in the U.S. by supporting anti-abortion politicians, primarily women, through its SBA List Candidate Fund political action committee.
Sidney Manuel Wolfe was an American physician and the co-founder and director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, a consumer and health advocacy lobbying organization. He publicly crusaded against many pharmaceutical drugs, which he believed to be a danger to public health.
Margaret Ann "Peggy" Hamburg is an American physician and public health administrator, who is serving as the chair of the board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and co-chair of the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP). She served as the 21st Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from May 2009 to April 2015.
Birth control in the United States is available in many forms. Some of the forms available at drugstores and some retail stores are male condoms, female condoms, sponges, spermicides, and over-the-counter emergency contraception. Forms available at pharmacies with a doctor's prescription or at doctor's offices are oral contraceptive pills, patches, vaginal rings, diaphragms, shots/injections, cervical caps, implantable rods, and intrauterine devices (IUDs). Sterilization procedures, including tubal ligations and vasectomies, are also performed.
Leana Sheryle Wen is an American physician, author, professor, speaker, consultant, newspaper columnist and television commentator. She is former health commissioner for the city of Baltimore and former president of Planned Parenthood. She has written two books based on her experiences as a medical professional.
A medical abortion, also known as medication abortion, occurs when drugs (medication) are used to bring about an abortion. Medical abortions are an alternative to surgical abortions such as vacuum aspiration or dilation and curettage. Medical abortions are more common than surgical abortions in most places around the world.
Matthew Joseph Kacsmaryk ( 1977) is a United States district judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. He was nominated to the position by President Donald Trump in 2017 and sworn in for the position in 2019. In 2023, he presided over a lawsuit regarding the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)'s approval of abortion medication mifepristone in 2000, and had issued a preliminary ruling suspending the approval of the drug, marking the first time a court tried to invalidate the approval of a drug over the FDA's objection.
Charlotte Ellertson was named one of 50 most influential people in women's health. She is a key reason women achieved “the regulatory, clinical, and policy changes that made these methods more widely available to women around the world”.
Susan S. Ellenberg is an American statistician specializing in the design of clinical trials and in the safety of medical products. She is a professor of biostatistics, medical ethics and health policy in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. She was the 1993 president of the Society for Clinical Trials and the 1999 President of the Eastern North American Region of the International Biometric Society.
As of 2023, Abortion is currently illegal in Indiana, with exceptions for fatal fetal abnormalities, to preserve the life and physical health of the mother, or in cases of rape or incest. Previously abortion in Indiana was legal up to 20 weeks; a near-total ban that was scheduled to take effect on August 1 was placed on hold due to further legal challenges, but is set to take place, after the Indiana Supreme Court denied an appeal by the ACLU, and once it certifies a previous ruling, that an abortion ban doesn't violate the state constitution. In the wake of the 2022 Dobbs Supreme Court ruling, abortion in Indiana remained legal despite Indiana lawmakers voting in favor of a near-total abortion ban on August 5, 2022. Governor Eric Holcomb signed this bill into law the same day. The new law became effective on September 15, 2022. But on September 22, 2022, Special Judge Kelsey B. Hanlon of the Monroe County Circuit Court granted a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of the ban. Her ruling allows the state's previous abortion law, which allows abortions up to 20 weeks after fertilization with exceptions for rape and incest, to remain in effect.
Jenny Brown is an organizer in the women's liberation movement and the author of several books on feminism, reproductive rights, and labor. She works with National Women's Liberation, a radical feminist organization of dues-paying women.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine is a pending United States Supreme Court case to challenge the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)'s approval of mifepristone, a drug frequently used in medical abortion procedures. The plaintiffs, led by the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (AHM), argue that the FDA did not properly approve the use of the drug mifepristone for pregnancy termination under Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act regulations and ask for an injunction to withdraw the drug's approval, thus removing it from the market.
Mayday Health is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that educates on medication abortion and how to access it in the United States. It was founded in 2022 in response to the Dobbs v. Jackson (2022) court decision that limited access to abortion in many U.S. states. Mayday educates on self-managed abortion and does not sell or distribute the abortion pill. Mayday was founded after the leak of the Dobbs v. Jackson decision that overturned Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). The organization launched on the day of the Dobbs decision.