In case you missed it: Ibis highlights from (northern hemisphere) summer 2024
This blog post was authored by Kelly Blanchard, who is the President of Ibis Reproductive Health.
I am excited to step away from work for a couple of weeks of vacation, but wanted to share a roundup of some of the VERY cool Ibis news and resources you might have missed while you were enjoying your northern hemisphere summer or trying to keep warm in the southern hemisphere winter over the last few months.
July 13th was the one-year anniversary of the US FDA’s approval of Opill, the first OTC oral contraceptive in the country. Free the Pill — the coalition convened by Ibis since 2004 — celebrated the two decades of work that went into not only FDA approval, but approval without an age restriction. We hosted two webinars commemorating the anniversary and sharing the history of the coalition and the work that got us to this moment. You can watch part one here and part two here. Check both out to learn more about the two decades of work and collaboration that lead to this milestone, the amazing coalition that got us to this moment, and the work that remains to ensure real access for all. You can also read this blog post from Victoria Nichols, Free the Pill Project Director, about the critical work ahead of us, and this blog post of mine from earlier this year about Ibis’s founder and how she laid the foundation for this work.
I had the wonderful opportunity to spend time with my Ibis colleagues in South Africa at the end of June and early July. It was an especially interesting time to be there given the results of the election at the end of May and the formation of the Government of National Unity (see this video from SABC News for more info on the GNU). You can read more here from my colleague Sesona about our work with young people in the Africa region on menstrual health and equity. We are currently in the midst of recruitment for a new Vice President for Africa Programs, and I look forward to introducing that person soon.
Please also check out the beautiful artwork our partners at Agents of Ishq designed to bring data from our research in India to life. This blog post shares lots of great details about our work in India on self-managed abortion and also provides links to a number of eye-catching tools including a 10-card infographic and two comics that used narrative and striking imagery to support engagement with evidence-based information and ensure the research results were accessible to a wide range of communities and stakeholders.
That work, like our work on telemedicine in the US and safety and effectiveness of medication abortion outside the formal health sector is designed to find creative ways for people to access high quality care. We were relieved that the US Supreme Court’s decisions on two abortion-related cases in June did not further restrict access to medication and abortion care in the US, but despite that being good news we are still a long way from access to evidence-based care and all of us in the US being able to live the sexual and reproductive lives we choose. Read more here from my colleagues about what it would look like if policymakers focused on evidence, health and wellbeing, and creating a just world where we all had the rights and resources to create the families and lives we dream of.
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I hope all of you get to take some time off to rest and recharge, and I look forward to being back in early September to continue our work with our partners to build a just future where reproductive health, well-being, and freedom are a reality for all of us.
