President’s Message

Friends, supporters and colleagues,

Gynuity Health Projects is a mission-driven non-profit with a passion for finding ways to address access barriers to reproductive and maternal health care. We design studies and build evidence on promising innovations and new service delivery models, then apply what we have learned to advocate for evidence-based changes in policy and practice that are timely, affordable and relevant.

In 2025, encouraged by the findings from our published proof-of-concept research, we launched a follow-up study in Mexico that started enrolling participants to validate a medication abortion regimen using ulipristal acetate and misoprostol. This work stems from a research project we began several years ago to identify existing medications that might be effective alternatives to mifepristone in a two-drug regimen involving misoprostol and that could help fill the gap in number and type of safe abortion products.

Mifepristone has been proven safe and effective, and is one of the most thoroughly researched medications, helping people get the abortion care they need. Despite mifepristone’s excellent profile, the anti-abortion movement in the United States stepped up political efforts, citing flawed science and debunked claims to justify restricting its access. In August, more than 250 researchers in reproductive health, including Gynuity, signed a public letter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reaffirming mifepristone’s safety record and calling on the regulatory agency to continue grounding future decisions in sound and transparent science.

This year, we welcomed the introduction of new criteria for detecting and triggering treatment for postpartum hemorrhage (PPH), the leading cause of maternal deaths worldwide. Gynuity was one of the first to start the discourse around PPH definitions and look for other possible clinical indicators to aid in PPH diagnosis. The new global recommendation is supported by the findings from a major World Health Organization-led study and is especially useful in low-resource settings where delays are more likely to result in deaths. More details summarizing our contribution to the study and our other work this year are available in the Program Highlights section of the report.

We regret that funding cuts led to the premature end of a study in Ecuador examining the feasibility of telemedicine medication abortion services using misoprostol alone. The cuts resulted in the closure of Planned Parenthood Global, the international arm of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and one of our partners in this project.

Finally, we received a special award of recognition from the Georgian Society of Contraception and Reproductive Health for significant contributions to improving safe abortion access in the Republic of Georgia. This accolade is reserved for work that has had a truly transformative effect. Gynuity has long supported efforts to strengthen abortion care in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and we were delighted by this gesture from our colleagues in Tbilisi.

A sincere thank you to our supporters, partners, and Board.

Beverly Winikoff
President