Beirne Roose-Snyder, J.D., is the Director of Public Policy at the Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) in Washington, D.C., where she oversees the organization's policy priorities and strategies to promote sexual and reproductive health and rights within U.S. foreign assistance. In her work she creates coherent and responsive advocacy strategies for a myriad of issues related to reproductive justice, human rights law, HIV/AIDS prevention and education, advocacy, and foreign policy. She is widely considered an expert in the legal implications of the Global Gag Rule. She leads convenings, seminars, and workshops on policy advocacy, law, and human rights.
Beirne has previously worked as the managing attorney of the Center for HIV Law and Policy where she developed tools for lawyers to represent HIV-positive clients and wrote and trained on HIV criminalization, particularly its impact on women. As associate counsel for the 2016 Chicago Olympic Bid, she supported litigation and counseled on intellectual property concerns and on labor and employment policies. She is a Rockwood Fellow in the Gender and Racial Justice Leaders in the HIV Movement cohort, and worked in AIDS services and education in the United States and Northern Ireland.
Her research has focused on women and HIV, broadening access to essential medicines, and the role of perceived blameworthiness in AIDS funding priorities. She has recently published articles on Trump’s Global Gag Rule in ARROW for Change, and on age and sex disaggregated HIV targets in National Action Plans for the journal Health Policy and Planning.
Beirne graduated from Earlham College with departmental and college honors in politics, and from Georgetown University Law Center with a juris doctor and a certificate in Refugees and Humanitarian Emergencies.
Featured work:
Beirne Roose-Snyder, Chaotic, Isolationist, and Anti-Woman: The Trump Administration and SRHR, 23 ARROW FOR CHANGE 6 (2017).
Jennifer Sherwood et. al., HIV/AIDS National Strategic Plans of Sub-Saharan African Countries: An Analysis for Gender Equality and Sex-Disaggregated HIV Targets 32 Health Policy Plan. 1361–1367 (2017).
Beirne Roose-Snyder & Megan K. Doyle, Global Health Licensing Program: A New Model for Humanitarian Licensing at the University Level, 35 AM. J. L. & MED. 281 (2009).
Jennie Wetter & Beirne Roose-Snyder, Season 1 Episode 5: Global Gag Rule, RePros Fight Back podcast (2018), https://www.reprosfightback.com/episodes-blog/2017/12/13/episode-1-d9nla-dkmah-29mz4-232m6.
“Sexual Rights: Definitions, Declarations, and Implications,” Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) webinar (September 2014) available at https://vimeo.com/107165723
“All Women, All Rights, Sex Workers Included,” Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) and the Kenyan Sex Workers Alliance (KESWA) webinar (September 2016) available at https://vimeo.com/181951909
“The Implications of the Expanded U.S. Mexico City Policy in South Africa,” the Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) and amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research webinar (November 2017) available at https://vimeo.com/243673529