Previous Reproductive Justice, Criminal Law, and the Carceral State Events

This speaker series, titled “Reproductive Justice, Criminal Law, and the Carceral State,” considers the criminalization of reproduction—historical and contemporary, local and global—largely through the lens of reproductive justice.

  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. Watch a recording of this event.

  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. Watch a recording of this event.

  4. Isabel Jaramillo Sierra, Professor of Law at Universidad de los Andes, will discuss the decriminalization of abortion in Latin America and the need to bridge gaps between old and new feminisms to continue to work toward reproductive justice. Watch a recording of this event.

  5. Robyn Powell, Professor of Law at Stetson University College of Law, will discuss how Dobbs creates a paradox for disabled people where they may be forced to bear children but subsequently denied the opportunity to rear them because of ongoing threats to their parental rights. Professor Powell’s talk will identify and respond to this paradox by providing and applying a disability reproductive justice framework. Julie Minich, Associate Professor in the Department of English, will respond. Watch a recording of this event.

  6. Priscilla Ocen, Professor of Law at Loyola Law School, highlighted the racialized and gendered ways that incapacitation, or the idea of removing dangerous people from society, has been used to regulate the bodies and reproductive capacities of marginalized women. Ocen explores ways to contest practices of alienation, denial of care, and humiliation of people in women's prisons through both law and social movements, including prison abolition, informed by the principles of reproductive justice. Nessette Falu, Assistant Professor in the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies, responded. Watch a recording of this event.

  7. Ji Seon Song, Assistant Professor of Law at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, examined the extent of hospital participation in policing and punishment, arguing that hospitals in the “free world” have become part of the carceral infrastructure, performing functions essential to the operations of mass incarceration by identifying criminals, helping build criminal cases, preparing people for incarceration, and treating and returning people to imprisonment. Snehal Patel, Assistant Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at Dell Medical School, responded. Watch a recording of this event.

  8. Aziza Ahmed, Professor of Law, N. Neal Pike Scholar, and Co-Director of the Boston University Law Program on Reproductive Justice, used the example of the highly controversial forensic method known as the “floating lungs” test in the context of self-induced abortion and stillbirths to interrogate the relationship between scientific expertise, evidence, and lawmaking. Ahmed argued that contestation around medical and epidemiological evidence shapes the regulation and criminalization of pregnancy-related outcomes. Jennifer Laurin, Wright C. Morrow Professor of Law, responded. Watch a recording of this event.

  9. Rachel Rebouché, Dean and the James E. Beasley Professor of Law at Temple University Beasley School of Law, discussed the attempts by antiabortion activists to stop medication abortion by any means necessary, including through criminalization; the implications for reproductive justice and public health; and how abortion rights advocates can keep these implications at the fore of their own efforts to increase access to abortion pills through federal and state advocacy. Kari White, Associate Professor at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work, responded. Watch a recording of this event.

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