The majority of Americans believe that women should be able to choose freely between abortion and pregnancy. However, for many women, this ”choice” is simply unavailable. There are a multitude of barriers to abortion access in the US, which in effect, prevent women from making their own decisions about pregnancy. These barriers include the availability ...Read more >

While recent studies show that there are barriers identified to providing medical abortions, there are clinics and physicians that overcome these barriers to provide the service. Prior research has not specifically identified barriers preventing doctors from providing medical abortions in South Dakota. Currently, Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota (PPMNS) is the sole provider ...Read more >

Historically, the field of family planning has not considered the role of sexual identity in shaping family planning needs. Given that roughly 20% of women under 30 identify as something other than heterosexual and face reproductive health disparities, family planning must be attuned to the needs of this population. Sexual minority women, including lesbian and ...Read more >

Access to dilation and evacuation is limited in most of the US. Induction termination (also referred to as medical abortion or labor induction) is an acceptable alternative to dilation and evacuation as a method for second-trimester abortion and may be preferable to dilation and evacuation for some patients. Induction termination is typically offered to patients ...Read more >

Approximately, 1,038 students from California’s public universities access abortion off-campus every month and of those students, 519 received a medication abortion. Yet no university in California offers clinical abortion care at a student health center on-campus. The limited research assessing barriers to medication abortion among California students indicates that cost, distanced traveled, and delays in ...Read more >

Importance: Access to safe abortion has declined in New England states such as Maine and New Hampshire, where there has been a 20% decrease in the number of abortion clinics between 2011 and 2014.1 This is a core public health issue that affects racial and ethnic minorities and low SES women disproportionately. Primary care physicians ...Read more >

Young women, those of lower socioeconomic status, women of color, as well as women living in Southern states continue to bear the highest burdens of unintended pregnancy in the US. Existing literature indicates that these same populations also have lower rates of contraceptive use, with lower rates often attributed to unequal access to family planning ...Read more >

Abortion has long been a contentious political issue in the US. While larger societal and political factors increasingly impede abortion access, the political rhetoric on abortion primarily focuses on the “right to choose” and therefore on individual women, as the primary, autonomous decision-makers for abortion. Rather than conceptualizing choice as an individual process, my project ...Read more >

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) events pose a significant health risk for women who use combined oral contraceptives (COCs). COCs are composed of an estrogen (most commonly ethinyl estradiol) and a synthetic progestogen (progestin). The dose-dependent relationship between estrogen exposure and VTE risk is well studied, and is due to changes in hepatic globulins mediated by activity ...Read more >

Dr. Agbemenu is an Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing at the State University of New York, University at Buffalo. Her current research includes access to reproductive healthcare services for African immigrant and refugee women. Her vision for future leadership and enrichment of the science on family planning is to become a leading internationally ...Read more >