Deshawn Taylor

DeShawn Taylor, MD MSc (she/hers) is an award-winning Gynecologist, Family Planning Specialist, Gender Affirming Care Provider, and Reproductive Justice Activist, whose work advances reproductive health care access through direct services, education and training, advocacy, and leadership. She is an Associate Clinical Professor of OB/Gyn at the University of Arizona College of Medicine Phoenix and the CEO of Desert Star Institute for Family Planning, a nonprofit reproductive justice organization committed to creating equitable access to reproductive and sexual health care while centering Black, Indigenous people of color. She has convened local and statewide coalitions for reproductive rights and justice with a keen interest in cultivating grassroots leadership in communities of color. Dr. DeShawn is a keynote speaker, author, and trusted voice for abortion access and reproductive justice. Her book, “Undue Burden: A Black Woman Physician on Being Christian and Pro-abortion in the Reproductive Justice Movement” provides a new prism from which to address the attack on abortion rights in America.

Dr. DeShawn was conferred the Doctor of Medicine degree from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. After completing post graduate training in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Martin Luther King Jr./Charles Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, she completed the Fellowship in Family Planning at the University of Southern California where she was also conferred a Master of Science Degree in Clinical and Biomedical Investigations. She is currently working toward a Graduate Social Justice Certificate through the Harvard Extension School.