Join 2023 Right Livelihood Laureate Dr. Eunice Brookman-Amissah for a guest lecture and discussion in Sociology 159: Pregnancy and Birth with Dr. Christie Mccullen.
ABOUT DR. EUNICE BROOKMAN-AMISSAH
Eunice Brookman-Amissah is a Ghanaian physician whose leadership has been instrumental in advancing safe abortion access across Africa. For three decades, she has spearheaded high-level advocacy, sensitization programs, and training on women’s reproductive rights. Her efforts have successfully united healthcare providers, government officials, lawyers, and activists in support of abortion law reforms in Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Benin, Eswatini, and Kenya, and abortion law implementation in Ghana, Zambia, Malawi, Senegal, and Mauritius, among others.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, 6.2 million unsafe abortions occur each year. It is the most perilous region in the world for abortion access: 92 percent of women live in a country where abortion is restricted. Brookman-Amissah, who began her career as a doctor, initially held anti-abortion views. But, when she learned that one of her pediatric patients died from an unsafe abortion, she changed her focus to advocating for safe abortion access. Her advocacy has contributed to a 40 percent decline in abortion-related deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa since 2000.
She previously served as Ghana’s Minister of Health from 1996 to 1998, introducing health care reforms and mobilizing increased donor resources for Ghana’s health sector. She was Ghana’s Ambassador to the Netherlands. Since 2001, she has been the Vice President for Africa at IPAS, an international reproductive health non-governmental association, and she leads the IPAS Africa Alliance for Women’s Reproductive Health and Rights. Her work with regional institutions, health ministers, legislators, health professionals, women’s rights advocates, and the media has brought the highly sensitive issue of unsafe abortion to the forefront of the health agenda in Africa. She is an eloquent spokesperson and an articulate and passionate leader who has successfully mobilized diverse groups to advocate for policy change and legal reform to reduce maternal deaths and disabilities from unsafe abortion.
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