THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT
Uta Landy
“Reproductive control is absolutely the essence of freedom and equality for women.”
Senior Advisor at the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at UCSF. She has worked as an international consultant, researcher, counselor, administrator, writer and advocate. She began her career as a counselor to women seeking abortions when they were illegal in the U.S., established abortion clinics after legalization, became the Executive Director of the National Abortion Federation, and founded at UCSF the National Ryan and Family Planning Fellowship Programs to promote contraception and abortion access, training and research. Landy’s programs have trained more than 7,000 obstetrics and gynecology residents and 500 post residency subspecialists in family planning. Her Family Planning Fellowship graduates have become the leading U.S. clinical scientists in contraception and abortion, publishing the results of hundreds of studies every year. They have become the nation’s leading advocates for “evidence-based” family planning care in the media, in legislatures, and in state and federal courts, where reproductive rights are increasingly under threat. Her work in medical education and abortion training is documented in many scholarly publications and in three books, the latest published by Cambridge University Press, Advancing Women’s Health Through Medical Education (2021). Uta Landy was educated in Germany and at the University of Alabama. She received her MEd and PhD degrees in psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She has received awards for her pioneering work from The Planned Parenthood Federation of America (Margret Sanger Award), The National Abortion Federation (Christopher Tietze Award) and The Society for Family Planning (Lifetime Achievement Award). Most recently she received “The Lifetime Achievement Award for Social Mission” from Beyond Flexner Alliance and The Josiah Macy Foundation and The Emeriti Excellence Award from the UCSF Alumni Association.
Interviewed by Judy Waxman, March 2022
Photo 1. Uta Landy, PhD, assumes the position of National Abortion Federation’s 2nd Executive Director, 1978. Photo 2. Advancing Women’s Health Through Medical Education, Edited by Uta Landy, PhD. Photo 3. Dr. Uta Landy and Dr. Philip Darney receive the PPFA Margaret Sanger Award, March 2012.
More About Uta:
- Uta Landy, PhD – Bixby Center for Reproductive Health
- The Kenneth J. Ryan Residency Training Program website
- Advancing Women’s Health Through Medical Education, A Systems Approach in Family Planning and Abortion – Edited by Uta Landy, University of California, San Francisco, Philip D Darney, University of California, San Francisco, Jody Steinauer, University of California, San Francisco, Cambridge University Press