March 2020 Power Player
At Power to Decide, we’re committed to uplifting the many individuals on the ground doing the work that matters most. Each month we highlight an individual who is championing the effort to give young people the power to decide if, when, and under what circumstances to get pregnant and have a child.
Staci Tanouye, MD, FACOG
North Florida ObGyn
What work have you done to ensure that young people have access to high-quality sexual health information or high-quality contraceptive services so that they can decide if, when, and under what circumstances to get pregnant and have a child?
My social media presence has been dedicated to providing women with the most accurate evidence-based health information possible including contraception information and resources. Through TikTok, I give safe sex and women’s health facts and then expand into more detail on Instagram. By making these messages more accessible to younger generations, I have been able to educate millions with high-quality myth busting health information.
How did you get started in your field? What is your driving force?
Women’s health first piqued my interest in medical school. While I loved all of medicine, I found myself drawn to learning more and more about obstetrics and gynecology. I actually wanted to study it. I slowly realized how unfamiliar women are with their own bodies and how empowering it could be to learn about ourselves. My mission became to empower women through learning and respecting their bodies.
What advice would you give to someone looking to effect change in the field that you currently work in?
Speak up. Don’t wait to be invited, take your seat at the table and own it. Our voices matter and we deserve it. There will always be people who want to silence us or convince us that controlling women’s bodies is the right and moral thing to do. But we must remember that freedom in women’s health is the only moral choice we have.
Why should someone care about ensuring that all people—regardless of who they are or where they live—have access to the information and contraception they need to live their best life story?
Because being able to control our reproductive choices gives us the power and freedom to control our entire future. It allows us to reach our goals and achieve our wildest dreams. Reproductive choice makes our future limitless.
Is there a highlight of your work in conjunction with our organization that you’d like to share?
I have received thousands of comments and messages thanking me for providing accurate health information that young women were not getting elsewhere. The most rewarding are women thanking me for helping them to realize they had options they never knew existed before. This is very powerful for them and their futures. I never realized the reach of social media as an educational influence until now.
