Remembering Felicia Stewart

A Letter from School of Medicine Dean David Kessler: Dear Colleagues, Please join me and pause for a few minutes to appreciate the many accomplishments and contributions of long-time women's health advocate and former Co-Director of the UCSF Center for Reproductive Health Research and Policy, Felicia Hance Stewart, who died in her sleep April 13 after a long struggle with lung cancer. An adjunct professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, Dr. Stewart was a fearless, creative thinker, a role model for women's health advocates, and a tireless campaigner for women's reproductive rights. She dedicated much of her career to designing research and policies that make safe, effective contraception and abortion accessible to women who need it. She was committed to the goal of advancing reproductive health technologies and to empower women and families in diverse populations with choices in reproductive health and prevention of sexually transmitted infections. Her publication in 1995 of Emergency Contraception: The Nation's Best-Kept Secret, helped to legitimize the use of the so-called "morning-after pill." I had the pleasure of working with Dr. Stewart when she served as deputy assistant secretary for population affairs for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and I was commissioner at the FDA. In 1997, we issued a Federal Register notice declaring six brands of oral contraceptives to be safe and effective for emergency contraception and publishing the dosage. Felicia Stewart always felt that the matter of advocating for safe and legal abortion, reproductive rights and birth control for women -- particularly poor women in developing countries -- was "a deeply moral undertaking", because it enables more women to have healthy children to whom they can give proper care. She was "uniquely sensitive to the social responsibility of scientists and the need for moral clarity in a field often driven by political factions", as the selection committee noted when she won the Olivia Schieffelin Nordberg Award For Excellence in Writing and Editing in the Population Sciences last year. Dr. Stewart was the author of Understanding Your Body: The Concerned Woman's Guide to Gynecology and Health, a non-technical reference book, and is co-author of Contraceptive Technology, a major reference source in the field of family planning. She was a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and received her M.D. from Harvard University Medical School. On behalf of the School of Medicine, I extend my deepest condolences to Dr. Stewart's family, friends and colleagues. Her impact both here at UCSF and around the world will be felt for many years ahead. Colleagues and friends of Felicia Stewart are invited to gather for a commemoration of her life on Wednesday, May 3, from 5-7pm, at Ida's Café, on the first floor of the UCSF National Center of Excellence in Women's Health, at 2356 Sutter Street.