Carole Joffe

Carole Joffe is a professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. She is co-author of a forthcoming book, Obstacle Course: The Everyday Struggle to Get an Abortion in America.

Passionate Engagement: Two Doctors Speak About Their Activism for the Right to Safe Abortion

Carole Joffe

I suggest that that these doctors’ statements point to a paradox of the abortion conflict in the United States; whether abortion provider or supporter, engagement with this issue introduces these clinicians to a diverse group of allies, with a shared sense of mission, that is rare elsewhere in medicine.

All Common Ground Lost: The Right’s Opposition to the Violence Against Women Act

Carole Joffe

The brewing fight over VAWA suggests there is today no common ground in American politics as to how best to wage the struggle for gender equality—or even if that is a shared desirable goal.

The Abortion Wars: The Real People Behind the Restrictions

Carole Joffe

An unprecedented number of abortion restrictions have been introduced and eventually passed in state legislatures over the past two years, during a time when one might assume politicians’ focus would be on the economy. But there are real people behind the numbers and they are bearing the enormous toll of these laws.

Collision of Reality and Ideology: Karen Santorum’s Past and Rick Santorum’s Vision of Your Future

Carole Joffe

Before marrying Rick Santorum, Karen Santorum lived with a pro-choice Ob-Gyn 40 years her senior. Today, Santorum the candidate believes the government should be able to ban contraception and abortion, and criminalize extra-marital sex and gay sex among other things. The Senator’s fervent desire to deny the rest of us the sexual and reproductive choices that his own wife once enjoyed is breathtakingly hypocritical and cruel.

Vulnerable Women and Contraception: Obama Turns Clock Back Nearly 100 Years

Carole Joffe

A critique of reproductive politics written in the 1970s about events in the ‘20s and ‘30s is remarkably relevant to today’s leading reproductive controversy: the Obama Administration’s overruling of the FDA decision to allow over-the-counter status of Plan B emergency contraception for young women under the age of seventeen.

The Other 99 Percent: Will Obama Betray Them?

Carole Joffe

There is another 99 percent group in our country, distinct from but inextricably entwined with the now more familiar #99Percent. I refer to the 99 percent of American women who have ever had sexual intercourse and have used a birth control method at least some of the time.

Todd Stave Turns Anti-Choice Tactics Into Pro-Choice Gains

Carole Joffe

Todd Stave, the landlord of the clinic where Dr. Carhart practices in Maryland, found that the best way to stop anti-choice harrasment was to use their own tactics against them. Carole Joffe interviews Stave for Rewire.

Rick Perry’s Vasectomy: The Governor’s Reliance on What He Denies to His Fellow Texans

Carole Joffe

Rick Perry had a vasectomy. But in his relentless attacks on contraception, and of course, abortion and comprehensive sex education, Perry is doing all he can to reassure his base that many of his fellow Texans will not have the same opportunity to control their childbearing as the Perry family had.

Working with Dr. Tiller: His Staff Recalls a Tradition of Compassionate Care at Women’s Health Care Services of Wichita

Carole Joffe

Dr. Tiller’s murder and the closing of his clinic brought renewed national attention to the problems facing women who need abortions late in pregnancy. While he was viciously attacked by anti-choicers, one of whom eventually killed him, he was beloved by his staff and his patients for compassionate care in extraordinary circumstances.

What’s At Stake in How HHS Handles the IOM Report?

Carole Joffe

What’s at stake in the HHS decision around the IOM recommendations on contraception? First, the health and rights of women who will benefit from easier access to contraception. And second, the IOM’s action draws attention to the extent to which contraception has become yet another front in the nation’s unending culture war.

Carole Joffe

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