Guttmacher Institute - Center facts. Shape policy. Advance sexual and reproductive rights.

Aasna Sijapati

sramashwar — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 20:54:52 +0000

Aasna Sijapati

sramashwar July 16, 2026

Senior Research Assistant

The Dangerous Unraveling Of The United States’ Family Planning Safety Net

jloewenberg — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 15:18:28 +0000

The Dangerous Unraveling Of The United States’ Family Planning Safety Net Policy Analysis jloewenberg July 16, 2026 July 14, 2026

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Guttmacher Institute Opposes Proposed Federal Funding Rules That Threaten Reproductive Health Programs and Research

jloewenberg — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 14:31:00 +0000

Guttmacher Institute Opposes Proposed Federal Funding Rules That Threaten Reproductive Health Programs and Research July 14, 2026jloewenberg July 14, 2026 News Release

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Guttmacher Opposes Federal Funding Rules That Threaten Reproductive Health Programs and Research

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US Communications Assistant

lkhan — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 19:07:02 +0000

US Communications Assistant

Organization

Founded in 1968, the Guttmacher Institute is a global leader in advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights. Through a unique and interrelated program of high-quality research, evidence-based advocacy and strategic communications, the Institute works to generate new ideas, encourage enlightened public debate, and promote sound policy and program development; its overarching goal is to ensure the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health and rights for all people worldwide. The Institute is engaged in building a more inclusive, transparent and equitable organization.

Position summary

The U.S. Communications Assistant is an important part of Guttmacher’s domestic communications team, working collaboratively with mid and senior-level staff across divisions to help implement strategies to inform and shape public debate on sexual and reproductive health and rights issues in the United States. This position works closely with the rest of the communications team, as well as the domestic research and policy teams, by assisting in the creation and dissemination of communications materials across various communications channels (including the Guttmacher website, email list and social media accounts), monitoring and documenting the impact of these efforts, and providing other project support (such as media list building and other research support). This position reports to the Principal US Communications Strategist.

Responsibilities

Communications Support

Help draft and project manage the production of communications materials,including digital products,in collaboration with senior communications staff and cross-divisional project members
Assist in disseminating communications materials to the Institute’s email list,website, social media channels and media contacts
Assist with preparing materials for publication on our website
Provide research assistance to the domestic communications and policy team, retrieving and synthesizing information from internal and external sources as appropriate (including from previously published Guttmacher materials and news coverage we have shaped or generated);
Help with researching and drafting articles and materials, including having a by line as appropriate, and assisting with facilitating review processes and other project management
Contribute to rapid response efforts and support preparing for major events like relevant Supreme Court decisions
Monitor and document news coverage and other impacts of domestic communication team’s work, including tracking media citations, reporter requests and other relevant metrics
Research journalists and assist in updating media lists
In coordination with other staff,help with social media scheduling,posting, and monitoring; draft scripts and otherwise support planning and production of video content for digital channels
Assist with preparing event materials,including presentations,backgrounders and briefing materials for speaking engagements, meetings and conferences as needed
Respond to info inbox email requests for Institute materials and general information
Prepare project reports for staff,board,funders and keystakeholders as needed
Represent the Institute at relevant coalition meetings and conferences
Adminstrative Support
Prepare and review expense reports as needed
Coordinate participation ofcommunications staff at domestic conferences and shipping of Guttmacher materials for events as needed
Provide internal meeting support through scheduling,note-taking,tracking needed follow-up and keeping colleagues up-to-date on project timelines and responsibilities
Coordinate meeting logistics for internal and external meetings
Maintain the US Comms Guttmacher publication tracker
Create and maintain Asana boards for US comms-related projects
Perform other job-related tasks as assigned.

Qualifications and Skills

Minimum of 1-2 years of relevant experience
Strong written and verbal communication skills,organizational skills with careful attention to detail
Demonstrated ability to multi-task and handle a range of time-sensitive administrative and communications responsibilities
Demonstrated ability to collaborate cross-functionally, follow direction from multiple stakeholders, and work independently with initiative
Experience working in a fast-paced environment
Comfortable liaising with a variety of audiences while representing the Guttmacher Institute in a professional and culturally competent manner
Proficiency with Microsoft Word,Excel,Outlook,andPowerPoint
Experience using social media platforms and AI tools responsibly
Familiarity with web content management systems (e.g. Drupal), email marketing platforms (e.g. Mailchimp), and design tools (e.g. Canva) is a plus

Salary and benefits

Salary starting at $53,572 to $59,236, and will be commensurate with experience. This range is specific to the New York and DC area, and base pay may vary depending on a wide range of factors. This is a union position. New hires are typically brought into the organization between the minimum to midpoint of the salary range posted depending on knowledge, skills and experience, and qualifications. Internal equity considerations will be reviewed before making a final offer. The Guttmacher Institute practices a hybrid work schedule, requiring in-office attendance currently 4 days per month.

We offer excellent benefits, including medical, dental, vision, and life insurance; vacation, personal, and sick time; paid parental leave; tuition reimbursement; commuting subsidy; and a 401(k) plan with employer match.Guttmacher Institute strives to provide the training and support for staff needed to be successful in their positions and to grow professionally.

lkhan July 7, 2026

New legislation to protect the right to travel for abortion care in the US

gsinger — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 18:40:41 +0000

New legislation to protect the right to travel for abortion care in the US gsinger June 25, 2026

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Locked Away and Left to Expire: The Trump Administration's Destructive Denial of Contraceptive Care

sramashwar — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 18:32:16 +0000

Locked Away and Left to Expire: The Trump Administration's Destructive Denial of Contraceptive Care Policy Analysis sramashwar June 22, 2026 June 22, 2026

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Megan Willkens

sramashwar — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 13:45:51 +0000

Megan Willkens

sramashwar June 16, 2026

Senior Research Assistant, AIU

Megan Willkens (she/her) joined the Guttmacher Institute as a Senior Research Assistant in 2026. Her research interests include sexual and reproductive health equity, community-based approaches to health care service delivery, and health systems strengthening. Prior to joining Guttmacher, she worked as a Research Associate at Weill Cornell Medicine's Center for Global Health, where she supported trials and observational studies on HIV and other chronic disease outcomes in Tanzania. Ms. Willkens received her BS in public health and public policy analysis from Syracuse University, and MS in epidemiology from Columbia University.

RHITES (Reproductive Health Initiative for Telehealth Equity & Solutions)

sramashwar — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 17:08:12 +0000

RHITES (Reproductive Health Initiative for Telehealth Equity & Solutions) sramashwar June 11, 2026

State Policy Trends Midyear Analysis: Five Key Issues to Watch in 2026

sramashwar — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 13:07:54 +0000

State Policy Trends Midyear Analysis: Five Key Issues to Watch in 2026 Policy Analysis sramashwar June 11, 2026 June 16, 2026

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New attacks on patients and shield law providers threaten remaining access to care

How Innovative Uses of Telehealth Can Support Abortion Access

sramashwar — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 17:55:45 +0000

How Innovative Uses of Telehealth Can Support Abortion Access

Telehealth has become an increasingly critical lifeline for health equity, including in the realm of reproductive health care, and specifically in abortion care. Telehealth enables clinicians to treat patients virtually without an in-person appointment. Patients can connect directly with a health care provider from any location using video or phone calls (often referred to as synchronous care), or via secure chat or messaging (asynchronous care). Telehealth can provide essential medical services directly to patients in their homes, between clinical sites, or through a hybrid of in-person and virtual care. These different modalities of telehealth can also serve important functions for abortion care.

A substantial body of research shows that telehealth can be used to safely and effectively deliver some services without the need for in-person clinical visits. In particular, research has shown that telehealth for medication abortion is just as safe and effective as in-person care. Telehealth can help make comprehensive reproductive health care more readily available, accessible and patient-centered, regardless of a person’s location or their local clinical infrastructure.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of telehealth has accelerated rapidly. As of 2022, roughly 39% of US adults reported using telehealth in the past year, with similar use rates across age, race, ethnicity and income. In 2024, some 71% of physicians reported using telehealth in their practice weekly—up from about 25% in 2018. This increase in the general prevalence of telehealth has been mirrored in the provision of abortion care, with the latest data showing that 29% of abortions are now provided via telehealth.

The expansion of telehealth abortion care has been shaped by shifts in federal and state policy. Since 2023, after an exhaustive review of the research on safety and efficacy, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has allowed telehealth, mail and pharmacy provision of mifepristone, one of two drugs used in the most common medication abortion regimen. In addition, eight states have passed shield laws that explicitly protect clinicians who provide telehealth abortion care to patients in states with total bans and other severe restrictions. However, anti-abortion activists have responded aggressively to the growing prevalence of telehealth for medication abortion and have challenged these evidence-based policies through legislation and in the federal courts. As a result, understanding the various models of telehealth abortion care is more important than ever. 

What Is Telehealth for Medication Abortion?

Medication abortion is a method of ending a pregnancy using pharmaceutical drugs. In the United States, this most commonly involves a two-drug regimen: mifepristone (an antiprogestin that blocks the hormone needed to sustain the pregnancy) followed by misoprostol (a prostaglandin that causes the uterus to contract and expel the pregnancy). Other drug regimens (such as misoprostol alone) can also be a safe and effective way to end a pregnancy. 

Telehealth for Medication Abortion (TMAB) generally refers to the use of phone and/or video calls for some or all of the interactions needed to prescribe and receive medication abortion pills. TMAB can be direct-to-patient, site-to-site, or accessed through a hybrid in-person/virtual care experience using different modalities. 

How Can Telehealth Be Used to Provide Medication Abortion?

Direct to patient:

The provider and patient are located in different places while using either a secure video-conferencing platform, audio platform, or an (asynchronous) messaging system. This is a fully remote model and often the patient is located outside of a clinical setting, such as in their home.

Example: Maya lives in rural Hawaii. She video calls her doctor in Honolulu from her bedroom. They talk through her pregnancy options, the doctor confirms her eligibility for medication abortion, and they complete the appointment entirely online. After the telehealth visit, the provider sends a prescription to a certified pharmacy or mails the abortion medications to Maya. If the former, Maya can pick up the medications at a pharmacy or the medications will arrive at Maya's location a few days later. She never has to leave her island.

Hybrid:

In this model, telehealth for medication abortion care is provided partly but not entirely by telehealth, often due to state policies requiring patients to have an in-person interaction with a clinician. This model of care was used extensively during the first years of the COVID-19 pandemic and could be vital to access if further restrictions are implemented.

Example: Jordan lives in a state that requires patients to have an in-person consultation before accessing abortion care. She has to drive to the clinic to meet her provider face-to-face before receiving pills in the clinic or at home, but can complete her follow-up appointment with a video call. 

Example: Alex meets with a telehealth provider, who determines they need an ultrasound prior to accessing medication abortion. The provider refers Alex to a brick-and-mortar clinic, which does all consenting and counseling via telehealth prior to the visit. Alex then goes to the clinic for the ultrasound and to pick up the pills from a clinician. 

Site to site:

The provider and patient are located in different clinical sites and use a secure video-conferencing platform for patient counseling, medication administration or supervised drug ingestion. 

Example: Priya lives in a small town with a local health clinic but no abortion provider. Her local clinic sets up a video call with a certified abortion provider at another clinic two hours away. The provider counsels her over video and then the local clinic staff, supervised remotely, give her a mifepristone pill.

Who Can Access Telehealth for Medication Abortion?

Just as telehealth in general has become a common mode of health care provision, telehealth for medication abortion has been increasingly adopted and preferred by many health care professionals and patients. As of December 2025, more than one in four clinician-provided abortions in the United States were accessed via direct-to-patient telehealth. As new legal restrictions have impacted abortion access throughout the country, telehealth for medication abortion has expanded to address unmet needs for care. A recent study of one online provider found that rates of telemedicine abortion provision were highest in Southern and Midwest, particularly in states with total abortion bans, and where care was provided under the protection of out-of-state shield laws. Additionally, the study found that rates of telehealth medication abortion were higher in counties that were further from brick-and-mortar clinics, as well as those with higher poverty rates. A different study examining one shield law provider’s patient demographics found that nearly two-thirds of their patients received subsidized care, due to financial hardships that would have made paying for care difficult or impossible.

Telehealth access to medication abortion can reduce the legal, financial and logistical barriers faced by many people seeking abortion care, and which can include state laws restricting or banning abortion provision; expenses associated with long-distance travel and accommodations; and the need to arrange childcare and time off work. However, structural barriers remain in accessing telehealth more broadly. These can include: a lack of broadband access or the lack of a private digital device (both of which can prevent patients from participating in virtual care consults); language barriers and other challenges navigating online platforms; lack of access to a personal credit card to pay for care; lack of a private mailbox to receive medication shipments; and financial barriers associated with out-of-pocket costs, underinsurance and lack of insurance coverage. These barriers are amplified in the context of general access barriers such as poverty, structural racism, and when the type of care sought is highly stigmatized, as is abortion care.

Who Regulates Telehealth for Medication Abortion?

The regulation of medication abortion care involves two overlapping systems of law, federal and state, that together determine what care is available, who can provide it, and how. 

Federal regulation of TMAB

At the federal level, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is the primary regulatory authority over drugs and medical devices. 

In 2000, the FDA specifically approved mifepristone for use in medication abortion. Other medications commonly used in abortion care, including misoprostol, are FDA-approved for other indications and widely prescribed off-label for abortion, a practice that is both legal and common across medicine. 

The FDA has established Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (REMS) for some of the medications it approves, including mifepristone, which involves specific prescribing and dispensing requirements. Outside of their application to mifepristone, REMS are largely applied only to drugs with specific safety risks and are applied to fewer than 3% of FDA approved drugs. In recent years, anti-abortion actors have sued in federal court to reimpose an older set of REMS for mifepristone, which required that it be dispensed “only in clinics, medical offices and hospitals by or under the supervision of a certified prescriber”—stipulations which may limit telehealth provision of the drug. At present, all models of telehealth provision are permitted, as this case awaits full consideration by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the FDA has begun a safety review of the medication. Depending on the ultimate outcome of the case and the review, different models of telehealth abortion care, including hybrid models, may still be available to bridge some gaps in access.

Beyond drug approval, federal law also shapes the broader health care environment: the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) protects the privacy of patients' medical records and limits what information providers can share, and the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTCA) prohibits unfair or deceptive practices in health care markets, including misleading advertising about medical services. These federal frameworks set baseline standards that apply in every state regardless of local policies or regulations (such as those imposed by licensing boards). 

State regulation of TMAB

States, however, retain broad constitutional authority to regulate the practice of medicine and the delivery of health care within their borders. This means states can and do impose their own additional requirements on top of federal law, governing everything from who can prescribe medication, to what telehealth visits are legally valid, and to whether a clinic must have a physical location to operate legally. 

Currently, 26 states and Washington, DC allow all modes of TMAB provision, while six states allow only hybrid TMAB. In 18 states, TMAB provision is completely banned.

Examples of state laws and regulations impacting TMAB: 

Limitations on telehealth modalities: These legal and regulatory barriers restrict the ways that patients can access clinical care via telehealth (e.g., in some states, direct-to-patient telehealth abortion care is not permitted). They are often driven by political considerations, rather than clinical practice, reducing providers’ flexibility and patients’ access to care.
Limitations on provider scope of practice: These legal and regulatory barriers restrict medical professionals’ service provision under their license, (e.g., in some states only physicians are allowed to prescribe mifepristone). Like telehealth restrictions, they are often imposed based on policy preferences rather than evidence from clinical practice.
In-person visitation requirements: These are state policies mandating that abortion patients be physically present with their clinician during certain stages of the abortion care process, regardless of the health care provider’s medical judgment. For example, a state may require the medication to be dispensed in person or require in-person counseling prior to all abortion care.

The impact of shield laws on TMAB across state lines

A shield law is a state-based legal protection that may be established by legislation or by executive order. These laws are typically designed to protect abortion and TMAB providers, practical support organizations, abortion funds and others from out-of-state criminal and civil investigations and associated professional and financial consequences.

Eight of the 22 states with shield laws extend their protections to telehealth regardless of the patient’s location. This means that these eight states protect providers who offer care to residents of states with abortion bans or restrictions—with the providers prescribing and mailing abortion medication following a telehealth consultation. 

The result of these state policies is a patchwork: the same federal rules apply everywhere, but access to medication abortion via telehealth, and the type of telehealth available (e.g., asynchronous, synchronous or audio-only) varies dramatically depending on where a patient lives.

The various state laws and regulations on telehealth for medication abortion, along with state shield laws, all factor into the complicated web that providers must navigate to determine how and where they can provide medication abortion care through telehealth. Providers must consider whether the state in which they are located permits TMAB, if their state has a shield law and the scope of that shield law (i.e., whether the protections extend to telehealth across state lines or are limited to in-state care only), as well as licensure requirements and minimum standards of care.

Conclusion

Telehealth is available in multiple ways to provide and support access to abortion care, whether through direct-to-patient, hybrid, or site-to-site models, or to support pre- and post-abortion care. Nevertheless, the patchwork of state telehealth regulations and structural barriers can make trying to access medication abortion a challenging experience, particularly for patients who are already marginalized by the health care system or live in underserved health care deserts. In this context, utilizing a range of telehealth models or alternate medication abortion regimens may facilitate access to care or help providers pivot to continue care should federal or state law change. Even in environments of confusion and care restrictions, it remains vital to ensure that people with the capacity for pregnancy have accurate information and access to the broadest possible range of sexual and reproductive health care options.

sramashwar June 10, 2026

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