“There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.”
– Audre Lorde
With the Supreme Court draft opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade, we are looking at the possibility of how this decision could create harmful and lasting consequences on the pillars of women’s Health & Well-being, Freedom From Violence, Economic Mobility, and Leadership.
This Event took place June 2 @ 9:00 am – 10:30 am
As experts help us identify and discuss the difference in voices and issues across Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights, and Reproductive Justice, the intersectionality between them, and how these can only be achieved when all women and girls have the economic, social and political power to make healthy decisions about their bodies, their families and their communities.
“Women’s rights are an essential part of the overall human rights agenda, trained on the equal dignity and ability to live in freedom all people should enjoy.”
– Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Keynote Speaker
Elizabeth Barajas-Román is the President & CEO of the Women’s Funding Network, the largest philanthropic network in the world devoted to gender equity and justice. In this role, Elizabeth leads strategy to strengthen the collective power of the network as a unified platform for change.
Previously, she was CEO of the Solidago Foundation. For more than 20 years she has been a leader in progressive movements, including advocating at the national level for the health and rights of immigrant women and their families. She has also served as the CEO of the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts. Under her leadership, the Women’s Fund was part of several strategic initiatives that resulted in systems-level change impacting millions of women and their families. She was previously a manager at The Pew Charitable Trusts, and before that, the Director of Policy at National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health where she opened and directed the organization’s Washington, D.C. office.
Elizabeth serves on the advisory board of the Ida B. Wells society and the Asian American Women’s Political Initiative. The Massachusetts Treasurer appointed Elizabeth to serve on the state’s Economic Empowerment Trust Fund Board, and the statewide Advisory Board on Wage Equality. Elizabeth previously served on the national Board of Directors for Emerge.
Elizabeth is a certified Project Manager Professional (PMP), a graduate of Oberlin College, and she received her master’s degree in international policy from Harvard University.
Keynote Speaker
Elizabeth Barajas-Román is the President & CEO of the Women’s Funding Network, the largest philanthropic network in the world devoted to gender equity and justice. In this role, Elizabeth leads strategy to strengthen the collective power of the network as a unified platform for change.
Previously, she was CEO of the Solidago Foundation. For more than 20 years she has been a leader in progressive movements, including advocating at the national level for the health and rights of immigrant women and their families. She has also served as the CEO of the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts. Under her leadership, the Women’s Fund was part of several strategic initiatives that resulted in systems-level change impacting millions of women and their families. She was previously a manager at The Pew Charitable Trusts, and before that, the Director of Policy at National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health where she opened and directed the organization’s Washington, D.C. office.
Elizabeth serves on the advisory board of the Ida B. Wells society and the Asian American Women’s Political Initiative. The Massachusetts Treasurer appointed Elizabeth to serve on the state’s Economic Empowerment Trust Fund Board, and the statewide Advisory Board on Wage Equality. Elizabeth previously served on the national Board of Directors for Emerge.
Elizabeth is a certified Project Manager Professional (PMP), a graduate of Oberlin College, and she received her master’s degree in international policy from Harvard University.
Panelists
As the founder and CEO Metro Mommy Agency, Esther McCant has provided labor support to over 125+ mothers during their birthing experience and also has served hundreds of mothers in South Florida through childbirth education, breastfeeding support, and other postpartum doula support services. She is not only a doula and childbirth educator, but also serves as a maternal health consultant, lactation counselor and certified HypnoBirthing Childbirth Educator. More recently, she completed the Advanced Doula Skills Training to better support high-risk doula and breastfeeding clients who struggle with diabetes, high blood pressure, anemia, or dehydration.
Currently, Esther is working to increase breastfeeding rates & reduce infant mortality as the co-lead for the Healthy Baby Taskforce, a subcommittee of the Consortium for a Healthier Miami-Dade County. This local community committee addresses health issues for children. She also serves as the Education and Communication Coordinator for the Jasmine Project, a program that provides wraparound services to reduce infant mortality rates in Miami Gardens and surrounding areas. She also currently serves as the founder and director of the Metro Mommy Agency Doula Mentorship program where she provides ongoing mentorship to 27 doulas located in Florida, Georgia, and Hawaii. She was recently awarded grant funds to support her work to improve the lives of families in Miami-Dade County.
Esther has been featured as a speaker for Carrie Meek Foundation, SantLa Haitian Neighborhood Center, Live Healthier Miami Gardens, Southern Birth Justice Network, and WIC and has also been featured in VoyageMIA online magazine and the Rachel Tourgeman Podcast. She also shares wisdom and insight on her experience mothering four sons in the Miami Mom Collective blog.
As a Miami native, Esther graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Biology from the University of Miami. During college, she contributed to the development of a summer science education program for underserved and diverse high school students and served as a health education intern with Miami Area Health Education Center. Working at the Department of Children & Families in the child care industry at the state level gave her a unique perspective on what it takes for children to thrive in a safe, healthy, and clean environment.
It was during her third journey into motherhood with midwives that she discovered her need to share her passion for childbirth with women who need support. She has four energetic, naturally-birth boys. In 2015, Esther created Metro Mommy Agency to address the lack of support among the families who need it most. Becoming a doula, childbirth educator, and certified lactation counselor fulfills her desire to teach and encourage other women as they embark on this journey of motherhood. Drawing from her own joyful waterbirths and breastfeeding experiences, she now provides water tub rentals and breastfeeding classes, and Breastfeeding While Black Support Group. Esther added a HypnoBirthing Childbirth Educator to her credentials to help reduce stress and bring more calm and relaxation to her clients’ births. Growing up in a Haitian household, Esther learned to speak fluent Haitian-Creole and also greatly values diversity. She has worked with clients from a number of countries and backgrounds including China, South America, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, Haiti, and Australia, to name a few.
When she is not homeschooling her tribe, some of her hobbies include spending quality time with her family and friends, baking, professional development, networking, reading, discovering new parks, and enjoying the outdoors. When the time is right, she hopes to become a midwife and provide holistic, top-quality services to families.
Diamond L. Delancy (she/her/hers) is a queer, black woman and holds herself accountable to the liberation of those communities in which she identifies in and answers the reproductive justice call to come together, dream and create a movement with the ability to win freedom for all oppressed people. Her career and lived experiences have provided her with the avenues to comfortably and creatively foster and facilitate learning and discussions surrounding social justice issues, oppression and intersections of identity. She comes to this work as Planned Parenthood's Black Organizing Program Manager with a shared vision to build an equitable, sustainable and inclusive movement that centers those who are most impacted, protects and expands avenues for access to care, and attains reproductive freedom for all
Dr. Stephens' research examines socio-historical factors shaping minority populations' sexual scripting and sexual health processes, with emphasis on gender and ethnic/ racial identity development. Her research is conducted through the Heath Disparities and Cultural Identities Lab. With an ultimate goal of reducing health disparities, her research specifically examines diverse cultural beliefs' influence on intimate relationships and sexual health decision-making in marginalized populations.
Caroline Mala Corbin is Professor of Law and Dean’s Distinguished Scholar at the University of Miami School of Law. She teaches U.S. Constitutional Law I, U.S. Constitutional Law II, First Amendment, the Religion Clauses, the Free Speech Clause, Feminism and the First Amendment, and Advanced Topics in Reproductive Rights. Her scholarship focuses on the First Amendment’s speech and religion clauses, particularly their intersection with equality issues.
Professor Corbin’s articles have been published in the New York University Law Review, UCLA Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Boston University Law Review, and Emory Law Journal, among others. Her writing has also appeared in the online editions of the Harvard Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Michigan Law Review, California Law Review, and Virginia Law Review. As well as writing for Take Care Blog, ACSblog, and NBC Think, Professor Corbin is a frequent commentator for local and national media on First Amendment questions.
Professor Corbin joined the Miami law faculty in 2008 after completing a postdoctoral research fellowship at Columbia Law School. Before her fellowship, she litigated civil rights cases as a pro bono fellow at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP and as an attorney at the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project. She also clerked for the Hon. M. Blane Michael of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Professor Corbin holds a B.A. from Harvard University and a J.D. from Columbia Law School. She was a James Kent Scholar while at Columbia Law School, where she also won the Pauline Berman Heller Prize and the James A. Elkins Prize for Constitutional Law.
