This class is focused on global reproductive and maternity health policy and how it shapes the local provision of women’s health care services in developing countries emphasizing Latin America. The first portion of this course will build upon our current U.S. biomedical understanding of major conditions affecting women’s reproductive health e.g., pregnancy, reproductive control, assisted reproduction and sexually transmitted infections and will raise challenges from a feminist perspective, encouraging expanded models that address the complexity of individual women's reproductive health within a domestic and transnational, global context. Understanding women's reproductive health within this context requires broader consideration of the intersections of gender, race/ethnicity, class, culture, geography, economic status, nation and other identities. This will include considerations of access to health care personnel, resources and services as a background to opportunities to improve women’s health status locally. The final portion of the course will take these expanded discussions from a health policy level to a focus on the World Health Organization’s Millennium Development Goals related to women’s reproductive health and Safe Motherhood policy initiatives that invoke a human rights argument for the promotion of maternal and infant health. As a case example, we will focus on the role of skilled birth attendants and midwives as key actors in the Safe Motherhood Initiative but whose role is defined through the lens of gender dynamics and authoritative knowledge that shapes how maternal child health policy is reviewed, considered and implemented.

For those students who are interested and who have Spanish Language speaking skills, there is a service learning study abroad component to this course where two weeks (June 17-June 30) are spent in a rural Honduras community focused providing reproductive and maternity health care education and services.

WOMENSTD 220 (Perspectives in Women's Health) is the prerequisite for this course rather than WOMENSTD 240 (Intro to Women's Studies).