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Accessibility & LanguageNews & Events
Adjunct Professor Terry McGovern and Dr Maeve O’Rourke publish in BMJ Collection
Sep
21
2026
Posted: 15:24 IST
A new BMJ Collection on Protecting Global Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) has been published, with Adjunct Professor Terry McGovern as lead author and Dr Maeve O’Rourke as one of 17 contributing authors.
The BMJ Collection explores how SRHR can be protected and advanced in a changing and threatened context. As the Collection’s articles discuss, the global landscape for SRHR has been transformed. Sweeping changes to US global health and development policies, declining multilateral cooperation, coordinated anti-rights mobilisation, and growing financial pressures have undermined decades of progress in advancing gender equality and access to essential health services. At the same time, shrinking civic space and increasing attacks on international norms and institutions are weakening the systems that have long protected and advanced SRHR. Yet around the world, governments, health professionals, researchers, and civil society are responding with new forms of leadership, advocacy, and mobilisation. The Collection explores practical strategies for building more resilient, equitable, and accountable systems.
The BMJ Collection was launched on 15 September in New York, as the UN General Assembly was underway and as proposals for a merger of UNFPA (the UN’s sexual and reproductive health agency) and UN Women are under consideration as part of the UN80 reform process. The Collection authors strongly oppose such a merger, arguing it will dilute decades-long multilateral commitments to gender equality.
Alongside Professor McGovern and representatives of CUNY and the BMJ, Ireland’s Ambassador to the UN in New York, Martin Fraser, opened the launch event on 15 September. The Ambassador acknowledged the vital role played by civil society in Ireland’s experience of social change and progress on SRHR. He stated Ireland’s commitment to gender equality and women’s rights, to the promotion of sexual and reproductive health and rights, and to the promotion and protection of the rights of LGBTIQ+ persons. The Ambassador emphasised the necessity for evidence-based, robust risk assessments in relation to the UN80 process of structural reforms. Remarks were also provided via live stream by Dr Javier Padilla Bernáldez, Secretary of State for Health, Government of Spain.
The BMJ Collection is Open Access and includes articles by academic and civil-society based authors writing together on the following topics:
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Reimagining multilateralism for global sexual and reproductive rights
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Civil society resistance to anti-rights mobilisation
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New York state resistance to federal regression of sexual and reproductive rights
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International fiscal architecture for advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights
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Central role of civil society in advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights
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United Nations reform must protect sexual and reproductive health and rights
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Confronting financial and political headwinds against sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice
The BMJ Collection was developed in partnership with the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy, which funded the open access fees. The BMJ commissioned, peer reviewed, edited, and made the decisions to publish. Smruti Patel was the lead editor for The BMJ.
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Launch of BMJ Collection on Protecting global sexual and reproductive health and rights, 15 September 2026. Left to right: Maite Junco, CUNY Senior Vice Chancellor for Communications & Marketing; Ambassador Martin Fraser, MS, Permanent Representative of Ireland to the United Nations; Chelsea Clinton, PhD, MPH, Vice Chair, The Clinton Foundation, and Adjunct Assistant Professor, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health; Terry McGovern, JD, Professor, CUNY SPH, Adjunct Professor, Irish Centre for Human Rights, University of Galway and Lead BMJ Collection Author
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Launch of BMJ Collection on Protecting global sexual and reproductive health and rights, 15 September 2026. Left to right: Oriana López Uribe, BA, Co-Executive Director, Hilar Talentos para Cosechar Derechos Asociación Civil and BMJ Collection Author; Jaime M. Gher, JD, LL.M, Research Fellow, University of Toronto, School of Law, Reproductive and Sexual Health Law Program and BMJ Collection Author; Clarisa Bencomo, MA, Project Director for Gender Justice, CUNY SPH Sexual and Reproductive Justice Hub and BMJ Collection Author; Smruti Patel, MD, MPH, Associate Editor, The BMJ; Terry McGovern, JD, Professor, CUNY SPH, Adjunct Professor, Irish Centre for Human Rights, University of Galway and Lead BMJ Collection Author, ; Rima Athar, MA, Rima Athar Creative Consulting and BMJ Collection Author; Maeve O’Rourke, PhD, Senior Lecturer in Human Rights, Irish Centre for Human Rights, University of Galway, and BMJ Collection Author
