[LBJ Future Forum] Perspective on the Roe Reversal: Implications for Texans
Channel: TheLBJLibrary
Date: 2022-07-20

On June 24, the Supreme Court voted to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, deciding that the constitutional right to abortion does not exist. Since then, the state of abortion in the United States has been a topic of much discussion. The LBJ Future Forum was joined by an expert panel to discuss the implications for Texans. 

Speakers:
Dr. Abigail Aiken, Associate Professor of Public Affairs, Fellow of the Richter Chair in Global Health Policy, LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin
Dr. Mayra Pineda-Torres, Assistant Professor in the School of Economics at the Georgia Institute of Technology
Dr. Kari White, Associate Professor in the Steve Hicks School of Social Work and a faculty research associate at the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin
Moderator: Karina Kling, Host of Capital Tonight on Spectrum News

About the speakers

Abigail Aiken is an associate professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Her research focuses on unintended pregnancy, evidence-based obstetric practice, and the impacts of laws and policies restricting access to abortion, including how and why people self-manage their own abortions outside the formal health care setting. She is currently the PI on Project SANA, examining self-managed abortion in the United States. She frequently testifies on reproductive health issues and provided expert testimony to the Irish Parliament on the 2018 abortion referendum. She has consulted for the CDC, WHO and UN on various reproductive policy issues. She completed her M.D. at the University of Cambridge, her MPH at Harvard University, and her Ph.D. at The University of Texas at Austin. Aiken's research has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the BMJ, the American Journal of Public Health and the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Her work has been reported by the Associated Press, Reuters, the New York Times, the Washington Post, The New Yorker, The Economist and the Wall Street Journal, among others.

Karina Kling is an award winning journalist currently serving as the host of Capital Tonight on Spectrum News. Capital Tonight is a nightly, political program focused on Texas politics. Before taking over as anchor of the show, Karina was the lead government/political reporter for the station. Previously she was a reporter and anchor at KOLN/KGIN in Lincoln, Nebraska. She earned her master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School.

Mayra Pineda-Torres is an incoming Assistant Professor in the School of Economics at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from the Department of Economics at Texas A&M University in May 2022. Her research interests lie at the intersection of health economics, labor economics, and gender economics. She is mainly concerned with topics related to women's and teens' welfare. Her current body of work studies the health and economic impacts of access to reproductive healthcare.

Kari White is an associate professor in the Steve Hicks School of Social Work and a faculty research associate at the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin. She received her PhD in Sociology with a concentration in Demography from the University of Texas at Austin, MPH from Tulane University, and MA in Latin American Studies from the University of Arizona. Her research focuses on evaluating the interrelationship between people’s reproductive health behaviors and outcomes and the health services and policies that shape their access to care. Her recent projects include the Texas Policy Evaluation Project – a collaborative evaluation of legislation affecting family planning funding and abortion restrictions in Texas, and studies that assess factors influencing vasectomy use and women’s access to abortion and post-abortion contraception in the Southeast. She incorporates both quantitative and qualitative methods in her research.