The decision in 2022 of the US Supreme Court in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization overthrew 50 years of established precedent delivering rights to abortion in the US. Since that decision, US States have passed increasingly restrictive and authoritarian laws that place women’s rights to control their own bodies at risk across much of the US. And we know that much of the rest of the world watches what happens in the US very closely. The battle for sexual and reproductive health and rights is not yet complete, and the Dobbs decision has made the challenge much greater.

The President and CEO of IPAS, Dr Anu Kumar, in conversation with Honorary Associate Professor Sally Moyle of the Gender Institute, will discuss the challenges globally, the cause for optimism and what we can do in Australia to help secure comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights, including the right to abortion, around the world.

Dr Anu Kumar joined Ipas in 2002 as Executive Vice President. In that role, she had oversight of Ipas’s fundraising and communications efforts, started a new technical area working with communities and pioneered work on abortion stigma. In 2016, she became Ipas’s first Chief Strategy and Development Officer and lead the organizational strategic planning process, along with fundraising, partnership development and technical innovation. In her tenure at Ipas, she has overseen technical and operational aspects of the organization from finance to medical abortion. Dr. Kumar has been involved in the creation of several new country programs for Ipas including in Indonesia, Myanmar and Mozambique.

BroadAgenda Arcticle, published 7 July 2023