Our history

In 1999, Drs. Philip Darney and Nancy Padian co-founded the Center for Reproductive Epidemiology at UCSF to bring together researchers, clinicians, and advocates across UCSF around a shared vision of advancing reproductive health.  The Center was innovative because it linked clinical, epidemiologic, and social research and recruited outstanding collaborators in each of these areas.  Drs. Claire Brindis, Felicia Stewart, and Joe Speidel later joined as co-directors.

The center changed its name to the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health and Policy following a major endowment from the Bixby Foundation to add UCSF to the Bixby Centers at UCLA and Berkeley.

Key moments in our first fifteen years

  • Dr. Darney traveled to Zimbabwe and Nepal to build 30-year research relationships with colleagues.  Dr. Nancy Padian established a pan-Africa research center for HIV treatment and control at the University of Zimbabwe and Dr. Cynthia Harper collaborated with Nepali colleagues to demonstrate the effects of legal abortion.
  • Drs. Darney and Brindis evaluated the California state family planning program Family PACT over a 20-year period, showing that the program had high patient satisfaction, decreased the number of undesired pregnancies by 200,000 each year, and saved the state over $400 million annually. The program documented the safety and efficacy of family planning innovations and contributed to 11 other states adopting similar family planning programs. 
  • Dr. Darney and colleagues conducted clinical trials of every new contraceptive approved by the FDA over 30 years, including implants, rings, patches, new pills, and IUDs, sponsored by NIH, the Population Council, and private foundations.
  • Drs. Cynthia Harper, Tina Raine, and Corinne Rocca conducted key clinical trials that allowed levonorgestrel emergency contraception over the counter to women 18 and older. Their pivotal studies ultimately allowed adolescents to be added to the label.
  • Dr. Craig Cohen founded the Family AIDS Care and Education Services (FACES) program in western Kenya. The sister Student Training Education Program (STEP) has trained hundreds of medical residents and students in HIV and family planning care. FACES conducted a cluster randomized trial of their “one-stop shop” model of HIV and family planning care – showing that integrated services led to reduced unintended pregnancy – ultimately leading the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to adopt this policy.
  • Bixby Center investigators led clinical trials of medication abortion, then known as RU486, and Drs. Stewart and Tracy Weitz cofounded a new program dedicated to abortion research, Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH).
  • Dr. Uta Landy, a founding Director of the National Abortion Federation, created the national Ryan Residency Program to assist ob/gyn programs around the country in integrating contraceptive and abortion training. The Ryan Program, now headed by Dr. Jody Steinauer, has served as an international training model and has trained more than 6,000 residents in the US.
  • In 2011, Dr. Brindis was appointed to the Institute of Medicine panel on women’s preventive care, whose recommendations were adopted as required components of the US Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). The recommendations included contraception without co-pay, and later federal rules clarified that all FDA-approved methods must be covered.
  • Bixby member Dr. Diana Greene Foster used Family PACT data to show that providing 12 months of oral contraception led to higher continuation rates and fewer unintended pregnancies. Today, nearly half of states and DC require public or private insurance plans to offer a 12-month supply.
  • Dr. Foster documented the effects of denying women a wanted abortion in the Turnaway Study. Among many findings, the study provided solid evidence that there are no long-term mental health harms of abortion, women are certain of their abortion decisions, and suffer economically when they cannot obtain a wanted abortion.
  • In 2014, ANSIRH’s Health Workforce Pilot Project changed California law, allowing advanced-practice clinicians to provide first-trimester aspiration abortion care. This study and law have been used as a model to expand care in other states where abortion care remains legal.

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UCSF & San Francisco General Hospital Reproductive Health Leadership

Starting before the United States Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade in 1973, UCSF and the San Francisco General Hospital—home to the Bixby Center—were leaders in reproductive health, including abortion and contraception.

  • In 1966, nine San Francisco physicians were threatened with loss of their medical licenses by the State Board of Medical Examiners for performing abortions for pregnant women who had been exposed to rubella, which is known to cause birth defects. Two of the nine were UCSF professors and others were volunteer faculty.  This case mobilized the medical profession to advocate for abortion reform and ultimately resulted in the 1967 liberalization of California’s abortion law.
  • In 1971, two UCSF physicians, Gary Stewart and Phillip Goldstein, published a study on the effects of California’s legalization of abortion on maternal morbidity at San Francisco General Hospital. That study was the first to show the health benefits of safe abortion in the USA.
  • By 1976, the UCSF Ob/Gyn Chief, Dr. Richard Sweet, had opened the city's first hospital clinic dedicated to providing abortion and contraceptive care at San Francisco General Hospital. This clinic, now called the Women's Options Center, became a national model for the integration of clinical care, residency and fellowship training, and research. Every year, the Women’s Options Center trains dozens of medical students, residents, advanced practice clinicians, and fellows in abortion and contraception including those who come from restricted states such as Mississippi and Texas.
  • In 1981, Bixby Center founder Dr. Philp Darney was hired by Dr. Sweet to become the medical clinic director of the family planning and abortion clinic.  He initiated routine residency training in abortion and contraception at what became the Women’s Options Center, creating a model for the Ryan Residency Programs that Dr. Uta Landy eventually spread to one hundred teaching hospitals across the USA and Canada.
  • In 1983, Dr. Claire Brindis co-founded the Center for Reproductive Health Policy Research in the UCSF Institute for Health Policy Studies, where she focused on evaluation of family planning and sex education programs.
  • In 1991, Dr. Darney started the first fellowship program for advanced training in research and clinical care in family planning, which under the leadership of Dr. Uta Landy, became a national program. In 2020, the certification and accreditation of the Fellowship in Complex Family Planning became an ACGME and ABMS nationally recognized fellowship in obstetrics and gynecology, and in 2022 the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology began offering subspecialty certification in Complex Family Planning.
  • In 1993, Dr. Jody Steinauer, then a medical student and now the Director of the Bixby Center, founded Medical Students for Choice while working at SFGH.