Reproductive Health Project – 2024

AMSA believes reproductive health services are essential to comprehensive health care, and we support full access to the entire range of reproductive services. We believe legal, safe, voluntary abortions should be available to all who need them, regardless of how much they earn, who they work for, or what state they live in. The AMSA Abortion Care & Reproductive Health Project addresses the “hidden curriculum” in medical school, prepares students to think critically about abortion-related education and training opportunities, and provides students with issue education, advocacy training, and hands-on skill building sessions.

Join us at FP4Change 2024 for clinical skills-training including MVA “Papaya” & IUD insertion, dynamic discussion with key reproductive health & justice thought leaders, & more!

Calling in the House of Medicine:
Centering Human Rights & Justice in Our Practices & Culture of Care

Featuring: Professor Loretta Ross, one of 12 Mothers of the Reproductive Justice Movement

Loretta Ross is a Professor at Smith College in the Program for the Study of Women and Gender where she teaches courses on white supremacy, human rights, and Calling In the Call Out culture. Loretta also is a recipient of a MacArthur Fellow, Class of 2022, for her work as an advocate of Reproductive Justice and Human Rights. Loretta was the National Coordinator of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective (2005-2012) and co-created the theory of Reproductive Justice.

Join us for her Keynote Address – Saturday, June 1 from 3:30pm – 4:30pm

Clinical Skills, Manual Vacuum Aspiration (MVA) “Papaya” Workshop 

Friday, May 31 –  9:00am – 10:00am

This workshop is a great opportunity to practice skills that relate not only to abortion care but are essential skills for miscarriage management. Using papayas as a uterine model, this workshop will walk you step-by-step through this globally important approach to safe abortion and miscarriage management. This workshop is limited to 50 medical students.

Facilitator: Aliye Runyan, MD, AMSA Reproductive Health Programming Strategist

Claiming & Reclaiming Power: Enacting Bodily Autonomy & Asserting the Right to the Information & Resources Necessary for Reproductive Freedom

Friday, May 31 – Concurrent Session, 12:45pm – 1:30pm

The universal human right to bodily autonomy is meaningful only if people have access to the information and resources necessary for them to enact their agency as autonomous beings. This panel session will address the various channels of information and resources related to abortion, contraception, and birthing options – and the barriers to this information and resources – that impact people’s ability to control their reproductive destiny. The discussion will address digital and online sources of information and support, abortion and midwifery funds, and self-managed abortion.

Featuring: 

• April Lockley, DO, Medical Director, Miscarriage & Abortion Hotline
• Rachael Lorenzo, MPA, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Indigenous Women Rising
• Dani Behonick, PhD, MPH, Updates Manager, Hesperian Health Guides

The Maternal Mortality Crisis: How Western Medicine’s Foundational Anti-Blackness & Anti-Indigeneity Harm Black & Indigenous Birthing People

Friday, May 31 – Concurrent Session, 3:15pm – 4:00pm

Modern western medicine’s foundation in white supremacist heteropatriarchy has directly impacted the profession’s anthropological presupposition that the one and only normative and normal human form/embodiment is that of the wealthy, white, Euro-American, Christian, able-bodied, neurotypical, cis-heterosexual male. This panel session will address the harms caused to Black and Indigenous birthing people attributable to the potent combination of Anti-Blackness, Anti-Indigeneity, and misogyny in modern western medicine’s culture and practices. Let’s talk about this, and come together to break this cycle!

Featuring: 

• April Lockley, DO, Medical Director, Miscarriage & Abortion Hotline
• Rachael Lorenzo, MPA, founder and Executive Director, Indigenous Women Rising

Check-out the FP4Change Member Center
All Day Friday & Saturday

Don’t miss the Period Pain Simulator Experience!

Experience Description:  Developed by  Somedays.com the period pain simulator is a device that works by sending small electrical impulses directly to abdominal muscles, causing it to contract in a similar way to how prostaglandins induce muscle contractions during menstruation. Period pain affects 80% of people who menstruate. Despite this staggering number, many people with period pain continue to have their pain dismissed and invalidated, and receive little to no support in places like schools or the workplace. Our mission is to improve the lives of people who menstruate. We use the period pain simulator to bring awareness to the frequent and sometimes debilitating pain that many people experience. Our goal with the period pain simulator is to shift culture towards a more compassionate and understanding future where people with period pain are believed and supported.

Explore the Abortion & Reproductive Justice Art Exhibit 

Featuring: Artists in the Movement for Reproductive Rights and Justice

Stop by the AMSA Reproductive Health Project Table 

Meet staff & student leaders of the AMSA Reproductive Health Project