Upcoming 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.
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.
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.
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.
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, Wright C. Morrow Professor of Law at UT School of Law, will respond.
Cary Franklin, McDonald/Wright Chair of Law at UCLA School of Law, will consider the attempted revitalization of the Comstock Act of 1873 to criminalize abortion at the federal level following Dobbs. Analyzing the approach to Constitutional interpretation undergirding this effort, she will argue that it subverts 50 years of equality law, aggrandizes judicial power, and buries the value judgments that continue to influence major constitutional battles over abortion. Elizabeth Sepper, Crillon C. Payne, II Professor in Health Law at UT School of Law, will respond.
