President’s Message

Friends, supporters and colleagues,

We are pleased to share our report with highlights on Gynuity Health Projects’ activities in 2024. As a non-profit aspiring to improve the health and well-being of people across their reproductive lives, we advance our mission by building and promoting high-quality evidence resulting in better access to reproductive and maternal health care.

Gynuity conducts its research around the world, collaborating with local partners who are at the frontline of reproductive health care. You can read more about our work in the Program Highlights section of this report—including published evidence from clinical studies that demonstrate the potential of ulipristal acetate as an alternative to mifepristone in early pregnancy termination; highlight the efficiency of an outpatient model for second trimester medication induction; and confirm oral misoprostol alone as an effective option for inducing labor in pregnancies complicated by hypertension.

This Fall, we hosted an in-person technical meeting attracting over 70 experts from diverse organizations involved in supporting medication abortion services to share evidence updates and promote the exchange of key learnings. Returning after a three-year hiatus, the meeting opened with a round-robin of institutional updates and was followed by concurrent breakout sessions on trending themes and panel presentations on the latest innovations and legal issues affecting abortion access. The participants’ high engagement directly contributed to the meeting’s success.

Like other non-profits, we monitor the impact of our work. One way we do this is by tracking how our data are used to back important political decisions, advocacy agendas, and messaging in support of access to medication abortion and other technologies. This year, for instance, Gynuity’s published research featured in several amicus briefs, including in one of The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and another of over 300 reproductive health researchers, filed in the U.S. Supreme Court. These and many other briefs argued in favor of the reversal of a lower court decision restricting access nationwide to mifepristone, a medication that was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for abortion care more than 20 years ago.

Also, our sample protocol offering guidance on the provision of medication abortion without routine facility-based tests before or after treatment was cited by program implementers in Washington state as a resource guide used to train pharmacists on dispensing abortion pills. We published the guidance at a time when we and our co-authors recognized the need for modifications of abortion practice that could be applied during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

In 2024, we welcomed Barbara Crane to Gynuity’s Board. Barbara is a political scientist and consultant specializing in reproductive health and rights whose distinguished career spans decades. We extend our sincere thanks to Pamela Barnes and Anju Malhotra, who stepped down, and are indebted to them for sharing their wisdom and guidance during their tenure as Board Directors.

Finally, we completed a strategy refresh. The refresh details the next steps we will be taking in our continued journey to strengthen reproductive and maternal health care access. Developed after a consultation led by an external consultant that involved staff, Board members and external stakeholders, the end result takes stock of everyone’s input and ideas, conveys the priority areas of engagement over the next five years, and encapsulates what we need to do to accomplish what we want to do.

Thank you to our supporters and partners for making our achievements possible.

Beverly Winikoff
President