Jessica Arons
Director, Women's Health & Rights Program
Expertise: Reproductive health, rights and justice, contraception, sexuality education, conscience clauses, assisted reproductive technologies, HPV vaccines, women’s health, privacy rights, HIV/AIDS, LGBT rights, the gender pay gap, and constitutional law
Jessica Arons is the Director of the Women’s Health and Rights Program and a member of the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative at American Progress. Prior to joining American Progress, she worked at the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, the labor and employment law firm of James & Hoffman, the Supreme Court of Virginia, the White House, and the 1996 Pennsylvania Democratic Coordinated Campaign. She currently serves on the boards of the Virginia ACLU and the advisory board of Law Students for Reproductive Justice, and she is a former board member of the D.C. Abortion Fund.
Jessica is an honors graduate of Brown University and William and Mary School of Law. At William and Mary, Jessica was an associate editor of the William and Mary Law Review, managing editor of the William and Mary Journal of Women and the Law, and a board member of the William and Mary Public Service Fund. She has been seen on MSNBC, Fox News, and “ABC News;” heard on NPR and Clear Channel radio; quoted by the Associated Press, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal; and featured in The Baltimore Sun, The Nation, Politico, Slate magazine, The Huffington Post, Think Progress, Science Progress, and RHRealityCheck. Her publications include “More Than a Choice: A Progressive Vision for Reproductive Health and Rights” and “Future Choices: Assisted Reproductive Technologies and the Law.”
Publications: “Women and Obamacare,” Center for American Progress (2012); “Separate and Unequal,” Center for American Progress (2010); “The Adoption Option,” Center for American Progress (2010); “There’s No Place Like Home,” Center for American Progress (2010); “Sick and Tired: Working Women and Their Health,” in The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything (2009); “Moving the Movement,” in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas (2009); “Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights: A New Opportunity for Leadership,” in Change for America, Center for American Progress Action Fund (2008); “Lifetime Losses: The Career Wage Gap,” Center for American Progress Action Fund (2008); “Worse for Women: An Analysis of the Effects Senator McCain’s Health Plan Would Have on Women’s Access to Health Care,” Center for American Progress Action Fund (2008); “Future Choices: Assisted Reproductive Technologies and the Law,” Center for American Progress (2007); “More Than A Choice: A Progressive Vision for Reproductive Health and Rights,” Center for American Progress (2006).