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Choice Dinner 2008

“How the Women’s Health Movement Revolutionized Health Care”

We hope that you will join us at our annual Choice Dinner on Saturday, January 26, 2008

Judy Norsigian is a co-founder of the Boston Women's Health Collective and co-author of all editions of Our Bodies, Ourselves.  Judy is an internationally renowned speaker and writer on a wide range of women's health concerns.  Her interests include national health care reform, tobacco and women, midwifery advocacy, reproductive health, genetic technologies, and contraceptive research.  She has appeared on numerous television and radio programs including Oprah, Donahue, The Today Show, Good Morning America, and NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw.
 

Judy  is a native of Boston, MA (where she attended Watertown Public Schools and graduated from Radcliffe College). Judy is a co-founder of the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, which grew out of a workshop about women’s bodies held at a women’s liberation conference in 1969. Other co-founders are Ruth Bell-Alexander, Pamela Berger, Vilunya Diskin, Joan Ditzion, Paula Doress-Worters, Nancy Miriam Hawley, Elizabeth MacMahon-Herrera, Pamela Morgan, Jane Pincus, Esther Rome (1945-1995), Wendy Sanford Norma Swenson, and Sally Whelan. The group now goes by the name Our Bodies, Ourselves (OBOS) and has produced a variety of print and online publications about women’s health and sexuality.

As a nonprofit organization that provides accessible, research-based information about women’s health & sexuality, OBOS advances women’s health & human rights within a framework of values shaped by women’s voices (including their own personal experiences), and a commitment to self-determination and equality.

Currently, Judy is the executive director of OBOS (legal name is still the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective). In addition to fundraising and administrative tasks, Judy is working on a number of different issues and campaigns addressing midwifery, advocacy, risks of egg donation procedures, advertising of prescription drugs, women and healthcare reform, and the risks of breast implants. She will be involved with numerous media and community events next spring after Our Bodies, Ourselves:w Pregnancy and Birth is released in March.

Judy agreed to come to Emma as the keynote speaker for the January 2008 Choice Dinner because she has always admired what the Emma Goldman Clinic has accomplished, and she has always wanted to come and visit. Judy sees the healthcare reform debates this coming year as an opportunity to work on securing women’s reproductive rights and reproductive health services--a key challenge for all of us, she says.

What does she see as OBOS’ strengths? “Our long-standing commitment to serve only in the public interest and our bridge-building capacity are our hallmarks. We remain one of the few women’s health groups in the U.S. that doesn’t accept funds from pharmaceutical companies and that tries to be scrupulous about conflict of interest. We believe that we must develop methods to pass our vision and voice to the next generation and create opportunities for intergenerational learning.”

Meet and hear Judy speak at our Choice Dinner.  If you have an edition of "Our Bodies, Ourselves" you would like signed, bring that with you!  Or you can purchase one through the Emma Goldman Clinic Store (while supplies last) to reserve for you at the clinic or dinner to pick up.