Previous Fall 2024: Reproductive Justice, Criminal Law, and the Carceral State Events

This speaker series uses a reproductive justice lens to consider the criminalization of reproduction, broadly understood—historical and contemporary, local and global.

  1. What constitutional law arguments might be used to fight the criminalization of abortion in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision? In this talk, Cary Franklin, McDonald/Wright Chair of Law at UCLA School of Law, will assert that the Constitution’s guarantee of sex equality offers a potent tool for challenging criminal abortion bans by state governments. As states turn to the most coercive methods for regulating women’s reproductive capacities, Franklin contends that their carceral tools, including the criminalization of abortion, render women less-than-equal citizens in violation of the Constitutional guarantee of “equal protection.” While Dobbs eliminated the “liberty” to have an abortion, lawyers and advocates are working to find new paths forward. Franklin will trace one of these paths, showing how fifty years of jurisprudence on sex equality can be used to protect women from the carceral threats of abortion criminalization. Elizabeth Sepper, Crillon C. Payne, II Professor in Health Law at UT School of Law, will respond.

  2. Wendy Bach, Professor of Law at University of Tennessee College of Law, will present the preliminary findings of a national research study tracking prosecutions for pregnancy-related conduct in the first year after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs, contextualizing them within larger conversations about pregnancy criminalization. Jennifer Laurin, George R. Killam, Jr. Chair of Criminal Law at UT School of Law, will respond.

  3. Amanda Heffernan, Assistant Professor of Nursing at Seattle University, will discuss her study of the impact of pregnancy-related immigration policies on the lived experiences of pregnant migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border during the Trump and Biden administrations. The findings demonstrate, she will argue, that under every policy regime, pregnant persons have been negatively impacted. Denise Gilman, Clinical Professor at UT School of Law, will respond.

  4. Isabel Jaramillo Sierra, Professor of Law at Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, will outline the feminist strategies that contributed to the decriminalization of abortion in Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico. She will contrast those “old feminisms” with “new” feminist approaches more inclined toward social media, arguing for the need to bridge gaps between old and new feminisms to continue to work toward reproductive justice. Neville Hoad, Associate Professor of English and co-director of the Rapoport Center, will respond.

  5. Using a disability justice lens, Robyn Powell, Professor of Law at Stetson University College of Law, will argue that Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization exacerbates a paradox for disabled people: they may be forced to bear children but subsequently denied the opportunity to rear them because of laws, policies, and practices that assume incompetence among disabled parents. Julie Minich, Associate Professor of English at UT Austin, will respond.

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