Upcoming Events!
Free and open to the public unless otherwise indicated.
Monday, November 30, 2015
Celebrating a Mystic and Reformer: Saint Theresa of Ávila (1515-2015)
4 to 6:15 PM (Reception to Follow)
Terrace Lounge, George Sherman Union, 775 Commonwealth Avenue, 2nd Floor
Monday, November 30, 2015
Melodies of the Soul, Then and Now
A Musical Homage to Saint Theresa of Ávila, 1515-2015
8 PM
Marsh Chapel, Boston University, 735 Commonwealth Avenue
Thursday, December 3, 2015
"Cada paso es un obstaculo"
Catalunya, Health Policy, and Abortion
Please join us for a presentation by Bayla Ostrach, MA, PhD, Assistant Professor of Family Medicine at the Boston University School of Medicine. Ostrach will discuss women's experiences navigating the Catalan health system to access abortion in the context of legal threats, La Crisis, and growing support for the independence movement.
This vivid ethnography of women navigating the Catalan health system to access publicly funded abortion care in the context of austerity-related cuts and threats to the abortion laws explores the impact of the current global economic crisis on health care-seeking behavior, the actual accessibility of national health systems, disparities that persist for immigrants even in a country that offers health coverage to undocumented residents, and women’s diverse approaches to overcoming obstacles to abortion care. Using the example of Catalunya as a case study in the larger global landscape of people’s experiences accessing publicly funded health care in a setting of policy changes and austerity, participants describe their efforts to use the Catalan health system to obtain abortion, which at the time of the fieldwork described had recently become more widely legal, discuss their awareness of shifting abortion laws and reproductive rights; and, for some, their vision of full Catalan independence as one avenue for preserving full access to abortion and other publicly funded health services despite La Crisis, austerity, and the increasing Euro-zone and Spanish pressures on Catalunya to cut services for immigrants. Through participants’ voices, a compelling portrait of perseverance in the face of, and resistance to, bureaucratic oppression and economic inequality emerges, accompanied by the author’s richly grounded analysis of what these stories reveal about health care systems amid the crisis of capitalism, reproductive governance, and women’s determination to do whatever they have to do get the health care they need.
Bayla Ostrach, MA, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Family Medicine at the Boston University School of Medicine, where she is a member of the faculty and the Field Practicum Director for the Master’s program in Medical Anthropology and Cross-Cultural Practice. Bayla is also a Junior Fellow of the Society of Family Planning. She began working directly in the field of reproductive health and abortion care in 1999, and has since worked at multiple clinics in Oregon, Connecticut, and Catalunya. She is a member of the North American Catalan Society.
4 to 5:30PM
Pardee School of Global Studies, 154 Bay State Road, 2nd floor (Eilts Room)
Sept. 10, 2014- Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Independence protesters march with torches through the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona - Photo by Jordi Boixareu
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