Ella Bassett – Global Reproductive Health at Duke

Criminalizing Care: South Carolina’s Dangerous Proposed Total Abortion Ban

September 30, 2025October 27, 2025 by Ella Bassett1 Comment

Since the Dobbs decision stripped Americans of the constitutional right to obtain an abortion, 29 states have passed abortion bans based on gestational duration and 12 have passed total bans (Guttmacher Institute, 2025). Anti-abortion legislators in South Carolina are pushing to become the 13th, with a senate-proposed total ban to be heard in October. If advanced, this bill will exacerbate the region’s already extreme Ob-Gyn care deserts (March of Dimes PeriStats, 2023), threaten providers with imprisonment, and burden an already strained system of reproductive healthcare. The Current Landscape of Abortion Care in South Carolina Currently, South Carolina operates under a ban on abortion once cardiac activity is detectable in the embryo or fetus, often occurring around 6-weeks gestation. This means that it is illegal to provide an abortion to a pregnant patient 6 weeks after their last menstrual period (LMP). This is 4 weeks after a pregnancy begins with implantation in the uterine lining and when many may not know that they...

Ella’s Final SRT Reflection: Notes on Stigma

July 30, 2025 by Ella BassettNo Comments

Our final weeks in Kisumu were bustling with travel to Siaya County. Our team is focused on leading the most effective CHP and provider trainings possible. Provider training introduces clinicians to their responsibilities as part of the R33 study and instructs them on treating HPV-positive women with thermoablation. Perhaps the most fulfilling aspect of our time on the study has been leaving an imprint on the training materials. We’ve developed several iterations of training slides, assessments, and study guides to enhance the providers’ knowledge and confidence in conducting treatment. After the first training session, the team asked us, “Do you think you could perform thermoablation now?” That’s when we decided to clarify the anatomy and treatment details that left us confused. We approached the materials from the perspective of a busy clinician with several other services to provide and counseling scripts to remember. We created a succinct summary of the most important aspects of cervical anatomy and thermoablation instructions. The next...

Reflections from the Field: Implementing HPV Testing and Assessing Sanitary Pad Need

June 26, 2025July 28, 2025 by Ella BassettNo Comments

When I first inquired into the Center for Global Reproductive Health’s cervical cancer screening and prevention research, I wasn’t sure where I should focus my efforts. After all, the center manages an impressive array of projects in Kisumu. First, there’s the ongoing R33 trial, an RCT evaluating the impact of the mSaada mobile app on HPV testing and treatment uptake. Then there’s Elimisha, a model of education and screening designed to measure and mitigate HPV and cervical cancer stigma. The Kenya-based team is also responsible for training Community Health Promoters (CHPs) and monitoring the supply needs of 12 dispensaries and hospitals across Siaya County. Each endeavor requires a set of carefully crafted tools for implementation, data collection, and analysis. Thus, even before we landed in Kisumu, our SRT team knew that we were entering a network of projects bursting with experience and hard-won lessons in global health implementation. Our newly arrived team celebrated our first full day in Kisumu with Dr....

The Sweeping Consequences of Abortion Restrictions on Sexual and Reproductive Health

December 19, 2024 by Ella BassettNo Comments

“There is more at stake than just protecting a woman’s choice to give birth.” Former First Lady Michelle Obama spoke of this reality during a Michigan campaign event for Vice President Kamala Harris on October 26th.1 This November marks the first presidential election since the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the revocation of a once-established national right to abortion, an essential healthcare service. The resulting hostile restrictions on abortion and their devastating health impacts have propelled the issue to its current political salience. Restrictions on abortion care are associated with increased maternal morbidity and mortality, with these burdens disproportionately harming Black birthing people.2 Further, a recent JAMA cohort study illustrated the detrimental impact of abortion bans on infant mortality, with researchers identifying an excess of infant deaths in Texas associated with the state’s 2021 abortion ban.3 These restrictions will also exacerbate inequalities and health systems barriers that prevent low-income patients, who are more likely to report an unintended pregnancy, from accessing...

Peer Navigators for Cervical Cancer Screening Among Women Living With HIV in Tanzania

December 17, 2024 by Ella BassettNo Comments

Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women globally and the most common among women in Eastern and Middle Africa. Tanzania has one of the highest incidence rates of cervical cancer in this region: 34.3 cases per 100,000 women.1 Low-and-middle-income countries such as Tanzania bear a disproportionate burden of cervical cancer incidence and mortality. These regions have not demonstrated the same reductions in cervical cancer rates that high-income countries have achieved with the introduction of the Papanicolaou smear and HPV vaccination campaigns. This disparity is largely fueled by resource limitations in screening programs and financial and social challenges to the acquisition, distribution, and acceptability of the HPV vaccine.2 "Low-and-middle-income countries such as Tanzania bear a disproportionate burden of cervical cancer incidence and mortality." HIV infection imposes complex barriers to cervical cancer screening among women in Tanzania. Tanzanian women living with HIV are more likely to become infected with HPV and develop persistent infection leading to precancerous lesions. Patients living with...