BigTentUSA hosted a powerful, personal, and vital conversation on women’s reproductive health featuring attorney Julie F. Kay, founder of Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, OBGYN, mother, and Texan Dr. Austin Dennard, and moderated by journalist Bonnie Fuller.
The discussion centered on the ongoing fight for abortion access across the USA, highlighting personal stories from the front lines. Dr. Dennard shared her deeply personal experience with a fetal anomaly diagnosis and her involvement in the Zurwaski v. Texascase. The conversation also covered the critical role of telehealth in providing medication abortions and analyzed the implications of the mifepristone case for women’s freedoms. This conversation shared the urgent need and work we all need to do in order to ensure that essential reproductive care remains legal and accessible nationwide!
Since the fall of Roe, the stories of women being harmed by bans and restrictions have become a daily drumbeat in America. Perhaps none more so than the women of Texas who live under the vague and cruel SB8. Dr. Austin Dennard, an OBGYN and mom, has confronted the consequences of Texas’s infamous law both as a physician and a woman. In July of 2022, at 11 weeks pregnant with her third child, Dr. Dennard received the devasting news that her baby had a deadly fetal anomaly. Because she is an obstetrician, Dr. Dennard’s story is both deeply personal and medically authoritative. She has spoken publicly, and she joined 21 other women in Zurwaski v. Texas.
*ABOUT OUR SPEAKERS
JULIE F. KAY, as the lead attorney who designed and litigated the landmark case A.B.C. v. Ireland, Kay successfully argued before the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights that Ireland’s ban on life-saving abortion violated her client’s human rights. Kay’s legal work with the Irish Family Planning Association is credited with playing a vital role in abortion legalization in Ireland. Her experience in Ireland and countries worldwide informs her strategies for abortion reform in the US. She is the Founder and Executive Director of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine.
AUSTIN DENNARD, M.D., is an OBGYN from Dallas, Texas. Dr. Dennard had to leave Texas to receive abortion care after learning she was carrying a fetus with anencephaly, a fatal condition in which the skull and brain do not fully develop. Dr. Dennard began her medical career in The University of Texas Southwestern Health system working at Parkland Hospital in Dallas. In addition to being a clinician, she has served as a clinical professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Listen to Dr. Dennard’s NPR Story here.