Intersection of Leadership and Advocacy: Driving Change Together for Women
May 14, 2025 | Contraceptive Access, Healthcare Advocacy, Leadership Journey, Women in Leadership, women's health
We can’t talk about challenges to women’s reproductive health without acknowledging that we’re living in unprecedented times, say two mission-driven women’s healthcare leaders. Stephanie Sober, MD, MSHP, Global Director, Medical Affairs Women’s Health, at Perrigo, and Raegan McDonald-Mosley, MD, MPH, CEO at Power to Decide, are both deeply committed to combating dis- and misinformation and increasing person-centered contraception access for those who face the greatest barriers.
“I never thought when I started my career that I would be a TikTok influencer!” says Raegan McDonald-Mosley, MD, MPH, and CEO of Power to Decide. “But on the other hand, it’s such a powerful way to meet young people with reproductive health information in ways that didn’t exist when I went to medical school. I couldn’t even have imagined this as a platform to reach people!”
On the social media platforms X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, and YouTube, McDonald-Mosley launched #AskDrRaegan, where she answers people’s questions about their sexual and reproductive health. Meeting them where they are, in the digital space, with positive messages is critically important, she says. A lack of standardized, comprehensive sex education has led to a startlingly low level of literacy around contraception. What is fertilization? What are ovaries? What is ovulation? “A lot of folks never got that baseline understanding of reproductive health.”
Listen to Episode 6 of Season 3 here.
Add to that the many myths circulating around contraception — and the deliberate spread of dis- and misinformation — and there’s a lot of work to be done.
Stephanie Sober, MD, MSHP, Global Director Medical Affairs Women’s Health at Perrigo, couldn’t agree more. “With increased restrictions on reproductive health in general, we’re seeing greater challenges to access to contraception today,” she says.. “I think these challenges are only going to increase and become even more pressing and important to address.”
Sober, who was featured last year in Time magazine’s TIME100 in Health, co-led the study supporting the first FDA-approved, over the counter, non-prescription oral contraceptive, Opill.
Both leaders are wholly committed to the same mission: expanding access to contraception, especially among women facing the biggest barriers, where sexism, racism, classism overlap. Women of color, those with lower incomes, people who live in rural areas, younger people are going to face the greatest challenges. That has led to a situation where more than 19 million women in the U.S. today who are of reproductive age are living in “contraceptive deserts,” says McDonald-Mosley. A startling number in this day and age. (Or maybe not.)
Listen to Episode 6 of Season 3 here.
Drs Sober and McDonald-Mosley also believe it’s essential that women are in leadership roles, especially in healthcare and pharmaceutical innovation, in part because they bring their lived experiences to the table. An example: “I’ve tried almost every contraceptive method available,” says McDonald-Mosley. “I experienced breastfeeding as a working mom and how challenging that was. I bring that perspective to problem solving, and envisioning a better world for the next generation of women.”
To her leadership role, Sober brings the patient perspective by working as a clinician part-time for the Planned Parenthood affiliate near where she lives. “For me, that’s always been really important—to still be a provider and to still be working directly with patients one-on-one. It’s really grounding in the sense that as well as working in a broader scope, you’re still dealing one-on-one with people and caring for them on that individual level as well.
“It’s an incredibly helpful perspective to have,” she says, “because it allows us to really have a better sense of determining whether or not [something] would actually meet the need that you know exists, and whether something would truly be an improvement over what either currently exists or is current practice.”
And what advice do they have for future women leaders in healthcare?
Listen to Episode 6 of Season 3 here.
Just keep showing up, doing your best and saying yes to impact, and yes to working with really great people. “That’s taken me far beyond my wildest dreams in terms of leadership roles,” McDonald-Mosley says.
“My advice would be that persistence is key,” says Sober. “I would urge folks to stick with their goals and keep going, even when it’s difficult and seems like an uphill climb. With Opill, there were many times that we could have just thrown in the towel and given up.” And after 8 years of hard work—which is a long time— she says, we did it. And the effort was totally worth it.
Hosted by Sara Thorpe, director of Clinical Strategy at Medscape
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