Cydney Murray, JD, is a Law and Policy Analyst at the Center for Public Health Law Research (CPHLR) at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law. Cydney seeks to develop a body of research that examines the role and impact of doulas in abortion care through legal epidemiology methods within a Reproductive Justice framework. She earned her JD from Temple University’s Beasley School of Law. As a Law and Policy Analyst at CPHLR, Cydney has worked on abortion-related legal epidemiology datasets, including the LawAtlas State Abortion Laws database and the Post-Dobbs Abortion Restrictions and Protections dataset.

As a researcher of color, examining abortion laws through a Reproductive Justice lens allows Cydney to engage with her work in a way that is aligned with her lived experiences. With the proliferation of restrictive abortion laws across the US, research on the impact of these laws on individuals’ health and well-being is of paramount importance. As Black maternal mortality and morbidity are projected to increase due to recent abortion bans, doulas could become an essential mitigating factor in injuries and deaths. Cydney seeks to initiate the creation of a legal epidemiology dataset which tracks and examines laws that govern the role of doulas, specifically in abortion care, across all US states and territories.