A Vote for Health: Reproductive Rights

Gretchen Borchelt (she/her/they) is Vice President for Reproductive Rights and Health at the National Women’s Law Center in Washington, D.C. She oversees NWLC’s advocacy, policy, litigation, and education strategies to promote reproductive rights and access to comprehensive, affordable health care, including abortion and birth control. Gretchen testifies before lawmakers, serves as a media spokesperson, regularly speaks at conferences and other public education forums, and has authored numerous pieces on reproductive rights and health. Prior to becoming Vice President, Gretchen served as Senior Counsel and Director of State Reproductive Health Policy at NWLC. Before joining NWLC, she worked at Physicians for Human Rights and was a Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellow at the National Partnership for Women and Families.

Gretchen is a Professorial Lecturer at George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health and serves on the Board of Directors of Plan A mobile clinics; the Advisory Committee of COMS Project; the Reproductive Health and Access Advisory Group of Urban Institute; and the Advocates Advisory Board of SiX’s Reproductive Freedom Leadership Council.

Gretchen is a graduate of Columbia Law School, where she was a Lowenstein Fellow and Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and the University of Virginia, where she was an Echols Scholar.

David S. Cohen’s scholarship explores the intersection of constitutional law and gender, emphasizing how the law impacts abortion provision, including violence against abortion providers, as well as sex segregation and masculinity. He also researches voting anomalies in the Supreme Court.

In the wake of the reversal of Roe v. Wade, Professor Cohen has been one of the leading national experts on abortion. Along with his coauthors Greer Donley (Pitt) and Rachel Rebouché (Temple), he has written law review articles about the aftermath published in the Columbia Law Review and Stanford Law Review Online and has a forthcoming article appearing in the Stanford Law Review. The trio have published four op-eds in the New York Times as well as many in other outlets, including Slate, the Atlantic, and Politico. Their work was cited by the dissenting opinion in Dobbs and countless scholars and has been the inspiration for at least 17 state laws passed to protect abortion rights in the face of the Supreme Court’s reversal. He is also working on a new book with Carole Joffe (UCSF) about the aftermath of Dobbs.

Professor Cohen published his second co-authored book in 2020, “Obstacle Course: The Everyday Struggle to Get an Abortion in America.” Published by California University Press and also written with Carole Joffe, Obstacle Course explores the practical realities of accessing abortion amidst the tangled web of restrictions across the country. His first book, “Living in the Crosshairs: The Untold Stories of Anti-Abortion Terrorism,” was published in 2015 by Oxford University Press and co-authored with Kline Law 2012 grad Krysten Connon. The book examines how abortion providers are individually targeted by anti-abortion extremists and how law can better respond to this type of harassment.

Professor Cohen has also published articles in the Harvard Journal of Law and Gender, Columbia Journal of Gender and Law, University of Pennsylvania Law Review Online, George Washington Law Review, Indiana Law Journal, Boston University Law Review, Seton Hall Law Review, and the South Carolina Law Review.  He has a chapter in Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Opinions of the United States Supreme Court (Cambridge University Press 2016) that re-writes the 1981 Supreme Court opinion that approved the all-male military draft and a chapter in Feminist Judgments: Reproductive Justice Rewritten (Cambridge University Press 2020) that re-writes the 2016 Supreme Court opinion that struck down two Texas abortion restrictions.

Professor Cohen received his JD from Columbia University School of Law, where he was named a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, received the Public Interest Commitment Award and two Columbia Human Rights Fellowships, and was a research assistant for Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw. He was managing editor of the Columbia Human Rights Law Review and articles editor of the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law.

After clerking for Justice Alan B. Handler of the New Jersey Supreme Court and Judge Warren J. Ferguson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Professor Cohen worked as a fellow and staff attorney for the Women’s Law Project in Philadelphia. There, he handled a range of cases involving reproductive rights, sex discrimination under Title IX, health insurance coverage of contraceptives, health care for women prisoners and family rights for gay and lesbian couples. Professor Cohen worked on several U.S. Supreme Court cases, including representing the plaintiffs in Ferguson v. City of Charleston.

Before coming to Drexel, he was a lecturer-in-law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He also held adjunct professor positions at the University of Pennsylvania and Long Island University.

Professor Cohen received Drexel University’s 2016-17 Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching and was chosen by graduating students to receive the Dean Jennifer L. Rosato Excellence in the Classroom Award in 2009, 2010, 2012, 2015, 2016 and 2019, the DiveIn Champion of Diversity Award from the Class of 2020, and Dean Roger J. Dennis Distinction in Teaching Award in 2021.  He also won the 2015 Center for Reproductive Rights Innovation in Scholarship Award and the 2016 Person of the Year award from the Abortion Care Network.

He currently serves on the board of directors for the national Abortion Care Network.  He continues to work on pro bono cases affecting abortion access and LGBT rights, including arguing and winning a 2018 Pennsylvania Supreme Court case on behalf of a pregnant woman seeking drug treatment and now litigating a case before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court challenging the state’s ban on Medicaid abortion coverage.

Jocelyn Frye is President of the National Partnership for Women & Families—a policymaking and legal advocacy organization which works to advance health care, civil rights, economic justice, and racial equity in America.  She is the first Black woman to head the National Partnership, which was founded 1971.

Prior to her current role, Jocelyn helped spearhead the Women’s Initiative at the Center for American Progress, one of the country’s leading progressive think tanks.  Her work there spanned a wide range of issues, including narrowing the gender pay gap, improving women’s employment opportunities and economic stability, combating gender-based discrimination and gender-based violence, and addressing the Black maternal health crisis.

Before CAP, Jocelyn served in the White House during the administration of Barack Obama.  She oversaw the broad issue portfolio of Michelle Obama, including the First Lady’s two signature initiatives—tackling childhood obesity and supporting military families.  She also helped establish the first White House mentoring program for local high school students.

A lawyer by training, Jocelyn received her J.D. from Harvard Law School and her undergrad degree from the University of Michigan.

Jocelyn is a proud native of Washington, DC, and was raised by two loving parents who worked as federal civil servants.  She still resides in the district with her husband, Brian Summers, and is a member of the Deacons Ministry of Shiloh Baptist Church of Washington, DC.

Carole Joffe is a professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Health at the University of California, San Francisco,  and a professor of sociology emerita at the University of California, Davis. Her research focuses on the social dimensions of reproductive health, with a particular interest in abortion provision.  She has written five books dealing with various aspects of abortion and other reproductive health issues and her forthcoming book, co-authored with David S. Cohen, Abortion after Dobbs: How the Supreme Court ended Roe but not Abortion will be published in 2025 by Beacon PressBesides writing for an academic audience, she also writes frequently for the general public on the topics of reproductive health and reproductive politics, and has published op-eds, blog posts and letters in such venues as the New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post, Slate, and The Hill.  In 2023, Dr. Joffe was named the Distinguished Emerita Professor of the year by U.C. Davis.   In 2017, she was awarded the Christopher Tietze Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Abortion Federation; in 2015, the David Gunn Lifetime Achievement Award by the Abortion Care Network; and in 2013, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Society of Family Planning. She has served two terms on the Board of Directors of the National Abortion Federation.  Dr. Joffe received her BA from Brandeis University and her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dominique Lee became President and CEO of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts (PPLM) on September 18, 2023. An expert healthcare leader and innovative public health strategist, Lee has dedicated her career to expanding access to quality, compassionate, culturally sensitive health care at Planned Parenthood and advocating for health equity and social justice through public health and policy initiatives. Significantly, her own lived experiences resonate with those of many Planned Parenthood staff and patients, deepening her dedication and insight into the distinct challenges and barriers they may encounter.

Prior to this role, Lee helped spearhead the Health Domain at IDEO, a renowned global design consultancy celebrated for its pioneering approach to human-centered design. In this capacity, she collaborated with health organizations to amplify health equity, foster social impact, and optimize their strategy, operations, and revenue streams using these design principles. She also spent 15 years leading health center operations and managing patient services at multiple Planned Parenthood affiliates, culminating as chief operating officer (COO) at the largest affiliate in the country, Planned Parenthood Mar Monte (PPMM), where she oversaw operations and delivery of care across 35 health centers serving over 250,000 patients annually in California and Nevada in comprehensive family medicine, behavioral health, and reproductive health care.

Lee is renowned for her innovative problem-solving prowess and steadfast advocacy, consistently showcasing an exceptional dedication to the patients and staff of Planned Parenthood. As the COO of PPMM, she was instrumental in orchestrating the organization’s COVID-19 response. Under her leadership, telehealth services were promptly introduced across 35 health centers, ensuring uninterrupted business operations and financial resilience. Moreover, she collaborated with three under-resourced county health departments to establish COVID-19 drive-thru testing centers catering to essential workers, first responders, and the broader community. She also spearheaded Whole Person Care in Santa Clara County, which has led to the first-of-its-kind redesign and the most significant investment in Medicaid in California ever seen through the Cal-AIM program, intending to enhance the quality of care, reduce health disparities, and improve the lives and health of Californians covered by Medi-Cal.

At Planned Parenthood Arizona (PPAZ), Lee instigated pivotal enhancements in operational systems, infrastructure, and patient care, successfully steering PPAZ toward a financially prosperous and sustainable future within a mere three years. Facing the challenging Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) laws, which placed undue hardships on people seeking abortion services and threatened to close reproductive health clinics, Lee’s leadership was paramount. With agility, she maneuvered through these laws, making rapid adaptations that preserved the organization’s financial health, safeguarded jobs, and boosted team morale, all while ensuring patients received immediate, top-tier care.

While working with the Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, a 501(c)4 advocacy entity representing seven Planned Parenthood branches in California, Lee was a staunch supporter of legislation AB-32, which extended fair telehealth service access to over 3 million Medicare/Medicaid beneficiaries amidst the pandemic. Furthermore, she pioneered the establishment of the inaugural state-level family planning funding in Nevada. She influenced Proposition 56 in California, a tobacco tax that now yields over $500 million annually for public health endeavors, family planning, and other crucial healthcare projects for low-income residents.

Dominique Lee’s appointment as President and CEO of PPLM is a full-circle moment for Lee and a historic one for PPLM. Lee started her career nearly twenty years ago at PPLM as a health care assistant and patient services manager. She launched a 17-year journey with Planned Parenthood that spanned four affiliates in red and blue states and urban and rural environments. Of Indigenous and Chinese descent, Lee is the first person of color to lead PPLM as President and CEO.

Lee holds a bachelor’s from Arizona State University in Tech Entrepreneurship and Engineering Management, an MPH from Dartmouth College, and an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. She is working towards a DrPH at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health with a concentration in Social Justice and Health Equity. At Dartmouth College’s Institute of Health Policy and Clinical Practice, Lee teaches classes in leadership and negotiation and is a thesis advisor for Master of Public Health students. She’s also been appointed as co-chair for part of Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine’s 5-year strategy, targeting the enhancement of health equity and holistic wellness across various domains. Throughout her journey, Lee has consistently intertwined health equity with wellness, branching into areas like reproductive health, social justice, economic principles, social capitalism, and a whole-person approach to health care.

Benita Miller (she/her) is the Vice President, U.S. Programs. She joins the Center with a 25+ year career as an innovative and visionary leader focused on the uplift and success of vulnerable families and communities. She a worked as a government official, nonprofit founder and executive, and trial attorney.

Previously, Benita was the Executive Director of Powerful Families/Powerful Communities, a five-year demonstration project embedded in the Office of the Commissioner for the New Jersey Department of Children and Families. The project is a collaboration between communities, families, national and local leaders, and government officials to design a child and family well-being system to eliminate the need for non-kin foster care.

Benita has also worked in New York City (NYC) government. In 2015, she was the founding Executive Director of the NYC Children’s Cabinet in the Office of the Mayor, with the mandate to mobilize resources, strengthen partnerships with the non-profit and private sectors, and drive coordination across 24 City agencies and Mayoral offices to meet the needs of vulnerable children and families. Benita developed the City’s policy framework titled “Growing Up NYC” and digital platforms, resources, and programs for caregivers and families.

Prior to joining the NYC Mayor’s office, Benita served for three years as Deputy Commissioner, Division of Family Permanency Services, in the NYC Administration for Children’s Services (ACS). Overseeing 10 direct reports and managing a team of 500, she created comprehensive policies and supports for young parents impacted by the child welfare system.

Benita has also served as the chief executive of two social services non-profits: Children’s Aid and Family Services in northern New Jersey and the Brooklyn Kindergarten Society. She also founded and ran The Brooklyn Young Mother’s collective, where she trained young mothers as advocates to ensure pregnant and parenting students were not pushed into segregated settings and had parenting supports, childcare, and access to reproductive healthcare. In her executive non-profit roles, she has had extensive experience in fundraising, public speaking, staff management, and program development.

Benita began her legal career as a staff attorney at The Legal Aid Society in NYC, where she represented children and young people in child protective, delinquency, and other family court proceedings.

Benita received her J.D. from Syracuse University College of Law, where she serves on the Board of Advisors. She graduated from Wayne State University, with a BFA in Print Journalism. She is also a board member of the Rosa Park Scholarship Foundation, The Alex House Project, Strategies for Youth, and Michigan Central’s Campaign for Children as well as being an active member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. and Jack and Jill of America.

Dr. Vanessa Nicholson is a health equity research scientist with over 15 years of public health experience. Dr. Nicholson is currently serving as an Assistant Professor at Tufts University’s School of Medicine, Department of Public Health and Community Medicine.

Dr. Nicholson has extensive experience in using evidence-based frameworks to create infrastructures that center on health equity, support health policy initiatives, and use data science that is culturally reflective and responsive to the experiences of historically underserved communities.

She investigates, designs, and apply evidence-based methodologies that address the complexities and intersectionality of racism, gender bias, and gaps in policy to elevate the quality of life to those most vulnerable communities. In both her teaching and her research, she centers the use and establishment of equity initiatives to optimize sexual and reproductive health and nutritional health justice.

She has applied her expertise by contributing to the early stages of infrastructure development for the M.O.T.H.E.R. Lab via her former positions as coordinator and being the first manager of the Lab. The Lab is now one of the nation’s largest dedicated to optimizing maternal health outcomes for Black women and has expanded to Tufts University’s Center for Black Maternal Health and Reproductive Justice led by Director Dr. Ndidiamaka Amutah-Onukagha. Dr. Nicholson is credited with writing the original unit lead positions of the Center. In her position as the first person to occupy the MOTHER Lab Unit Lead, she has laid the infrastructure for aligning the professional development needs of students with the expertise of unit leads to inform on priority projects and deliverables of the Center along with setting community agendas.

Dr. Nicholson is also the Chief Report Editor and Lead Technical Writer of the Report of the Special Commission on Racial Inequities in Maternal Health via her on-going partnership with colleagues at the Massachusetts legislature.

In alignment with her research agenda of advocating for health equity science, she is also a Co-Investigator of an NIH-approved Food Is Medicine Initiative, where she addresses nutritional justice for residents of the Mississippi Delta. Study leadership includes Co-PI’s:  Dean Chris Economos of Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition and Julian Miller, Senior Supervising Attorney at Southern Poverty Law Center.

Prior to her work at Tufts, Dr. Nicholson has worked in fields of government, private industry, research institutes, and academia including the University of Texas, her alma mater.

Janelle Palacios, Ph.D., CNM (Salish/Kootenai; She/Her) is a nurse midwife, researcher, lecturer and storyteller originally from the Flathead Indian Reservation located in Montana. Dr. Palacios is the founder of Encoded 4 Story and co-founder of SquareRoot Stories, story based consulting firms helping individuals and organizations link the importance of history and story to address and improve maternal/child health outcomes grounded in family and community engagement.

Dr. Palacios has served as Co-President of the Native Research Network, the nation’s largest organization of health research focused Native American researchers and allies, created by Native people. Earlier in her career, Dr. Palacios worked with tribal nations and communities identifying the strengths of young parenting. Through story work, Dr. Palacios expanded our understanding of motherhood formation among young mothers.

Her expertise in Indigenous maternal health has been recognized both regionally through consultation work, and nationally through her 4 year appointment as a committee member on the Advisory Committee on Infant & Maternal Mortality, under Health Resources and Services Administration. Additionally, she was the Co-Chair of the Health Equity Workgroup within this advisory committee, and was a key author of the first American Indian/Alaska Native Maternal and Infant focused report from this committee submitted to the Secretary of Department of Health and Human Services, entitled “Making Amends: Recommended Strategies & Actions to Improve the Health and Safety of American Indian and Alaska Native Mothers and Infants.”

Through consultation work, Dr. Palacios has extended her content expertise to include access to health care services among rural indigenous women, has served as a content expert for the CDC’s “Hear Her” campaign, is a project design consultant for a nation wide campaign to enhance understanding of fetal, infant and maternal mortality review employing storytelling as a method through the National Center for Fatality Review and Prevention, and serves as a American Indian/Alaska Native content population expert consultant for the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs designing an anti-racist health equity promoting population research curriculum, and more recently is integrating storytelling into The StoryWork Project, an innovative health equity tool that integrates history and storytelling to spark actions for change to better maternal/child/infant outcomes among BIPOC populations.

In concert with her outside expertise, Dr. Palacios has been a midwife in Northern California for more than a decade and is the Chair of the Supporting Vaginal Birth Committee at her workplace. Currently Dr. Palacios is an attending, teaching OB/GYN residents while also mentoring residents on large data based studies to support vaginal birth.

Alina Salganicoff is a senior vice president and the director of the Women’s Health Policy Program at KFF. Her work focuses on health policies affecting women throughout their lifespans, with an emphasis on coverage and access challenges facing women who are underserved or marginalized.

Dr. Salganicoff has written and lectured extensively on the financing of and access to health services for women, on topics ranging from maternity care and reproductive health to long-term care. Over her career, she has served on numerous federal, state, and nonprofit advisory committees focused on improving the quality of and access to health care for women. She has served as a member of multiple National Academy of Sciences committees, including abortion safety and quality, the control and prevention of sexually transmitted infections, and the state of women’s health research. She was a member of the Institute of Medicine committee that issued recommendations for preventive services for women now covered under the ACA, and continues her involvement in the issue through her participation as a member of the advisory panel of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ Women’s Preventive Services Initiative. She is also an associate editor of the peer-reviewed journal Women’s Health Issues.

Born in Argentina, Dr. Salganicoff is a native Spanish speaker. She holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Pennsylvania State University and a Ph.D. in health policy from The Johns Hopkins University.

Payal Srinivasa, MD, MHCI FACOG joined Fenway Health in 2023 the Reproductive Health Medical Director and OBGYN physician at our 1340 Boylston location.Dr. Srinivasa’s areas of expertise include full spectrum obstetric and gynecologic care, with interests in family planning, preconception care, contraceptive management, preventative health care and cancer screening, minimally invasive gynecologic care, and prenatal care.Dr. Srinivasa is passionate about trauma-informed care and health care innovation which improve patient engagement and promoting health equity.

Eleanor Klibanoff is the women’s health reporter, based in Austin, where she covers abortion, maternal health care, gender-based violence and LGBTQ issues, among other topics. She started with the Tribune in 2021, and was previously with the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting in Louisville, where she reported, produced and hosted the Peabody-nominated podcast, “Dig.” Eleanor has worked at public radio stations in Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Missouri, as well as NPR, and her work has aired on “All Things Considered,” “Morning Edition” and “Here & Now.” She is conversational in Spanish. Eleanor was born in Philadelphia and raised in Atlanta, and attended The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Nicole Huberfeld is Edward R. Utley Professor of Health Law at BU School of Law and School of Public Health, where she is faculty in the Health Law Program and Co-Director of the BU Program on Reproductive Justice. Her research studies the intersection of health law and constitutional law, often focusing on federalism while studying the needs of vulnerable populations in health reform, Medicaid, and reproductive rights. She is co-author of two leading health law casebooks: The Law of American Health Care, with Elizabeth Weeks (University of Georgia School of Law), Kevin Outterson (Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Law, Executive Director of CARB-X), and Matt Lawrence (Associate Professor of Law at Emory School of Law) (3d edition 2023). She also is coauthor of Public Health Law, 3d Ed. (with Mariner, Annas & Ulrich, 2019) (4th edition forthcoming). She has authored many book chapters, national and international law journal articles, peer-reviewed articles, and commentaries, appearing in publications such as Stanford Law Review, Harvard Law & Policy Review, Boston College Law Review, Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law & Ethics, University of Chicago Law Review, Boston University Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, U.C. Davis Law Review, Health Affairs, JAMA, and New England Journal of Medicine. Her work has been cited in judicial opinions by the U.S. Supreme Court, lower federal courts, state courts, and federal and state executive agencies. Nicole also serves as Research Director for the Uniform Law Commission’s Joint Editorial Board on Health Law.

She has been interviewed by media such as The Washington Post, New York Times, NPR, Congressional Quarterly, Huffington Post, National Law Journal, Mother Jones, Law 360, Politico, Vice News, Newsweek, Time, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, and Univision.

In 2019, Huberfeld won the Excellence in Teaching Award for teaching in the Core at BU School of Public Health. In 2021, she was nominated for the Melton Teaching Award at BU Law, and in 2022 & 2023 she was nominated for the Petit Teaching Award at BU Law.

Prior to joining the BU faculty, Huberfeld taught courses on constitutional law, health care organizations and finance, bioethical issues in the law, and health law and policy at the University of Kentucky College of Law and College of Medicine. Huberfeld won the College of Law Duncan Teaching Award in 2008. Previously, she taught at Seton Hall University School of Law as well as created and directed the health care compliance certification program at SHU Law. She also practiced health law in New York and New Jersey before entering academia.