Rosie Wang, Resident Blogger (’14, Columbia Law School)

Going into the midnight premiere of Django Unchained, the only real context I had was that (1) It was a Quentin Tarantino movie and (2) in Spike Lee’s opinion, it was racist. Coming out of it, I thought, “Wow, that was breathtakingly racist.” And not because of the copious use of racial slurs (which is what Mr. Lee objected to).

There’s something much more subtle and insidious in it’s portrayal of slavery: It adopts wholesale and without irony some of the worst plantation tropes and erases and reinterprets the historical narrative of black women’s lack of reproductive autonomy.

In Django Unchained, a German bounty hunter frees a slave, Django and partners up with him in capturing criminals. Django is dedicated to finding and rescuing his wife Hildy, who now belongs to a plantation owner who has male slaves killing each other for sport. It’s supposed to be okay for Tarantino to write and tell this story because it is a revenge fantasy of slaves rising up against their masters and thus subversive and empowering. However, there is a lot that goes wrong in the execution of this idea.

The black body is on sensationalistic display in a way that no white body equivalently is. Hildy is put in the “hot box” for trying to run away, and has water splashed over her nude body when she is released. Django is suspended upside down, naked and about to be castrated after his true intentions to save his wife are revealed.  Nearly naked black men fighting to death appear on screen multiple times. These are fraught images because the institution of slavery viewed black women’s bodies as  open for sexual consumption and black men’s bodies as threatening and open for torture. The way Django Unchained offers images of naked black bodies for visual consumption is exploitative and revels in the morbidity of the scenes, rather than aiming for historical accuracy.

With no historical background knowledge, someone watching the first scene depicting a plantation might think that a black woman’s life under slavery consisted of swinging on oak trees in hoop skirts – as long as she didn’t try to escape. In reality, coerced reproduction and rape is the way that slavery was sustained and slave owners’ wealth multiplied after the 1807 ban on the slave trade. The monetary worth of slave women being auctioned was determined by speculations on her reproductive capacity. Slave owners would pair their slaves with multiple partners and force them to engage in sexual activity without regard for any person’s consent. Slave women were especially vulnerable to sexual assault by their masters and the resulting children from such rapes were targets of violence by the master’s wife.

Harriet Jacob’s narrative of her own experience, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl describes her 55 year old master beginning sexual advance on her when she was 15. She eventually forms a relationship and has two children with another white man as the only method for escaping him. Children were often sold away from their mothers, dashing any potential of forming family bonds. Hildy is 27, and some mention is made of her role as a sex worker, but the very real reproductive consequences are never addressed. The legacy of all this is an entrenched distrust of the medical system among many black women which leads to poor health outcomes and the stereotype of not being able to be trusted to make their own reproductive decisions.

Elisabeth Smith, Resident Blogger (’14, University of Washington School of Law)

On Saturday, February 2nd, my LSRJ chapter hosted a conference titled “Reproductive Justice: Meta Rights and Milestones.” In the process of organizing the conference, I’ve thought a lot about RJ’s meta rights: the right to have a child; the right not to have a child; and the right to parent the children you have with dignity, free from violence and oppression. Two recent news stories demonstrated how some people with privilege have attempted to limit those rights by ridiculously redefining them.

I’m sure you’ve all heard about the New Mexico GOP state representative, Cathrynn Brown, who introduced a bill last week that would bar abortions for rape victims. How you ask? Well, by making it a felony for women who become pregnant as the result of rape to have an abortion because an abortion is, by the bill’s definition, evidence tampering.

Yep.

When this story went viral, the esteemed representative released a mind-twister of a statement:“House Bill 206 was never intended to punish or criminalize rape victims. It’s intent was solely to deter rape and cases of incest. The rapist–not the victim– would be charged with tampering of evidence.”

So, the rapist whose assault “created” the evidence would also be charged with tampering with that evidence if his victim chose not to have a child? Hmmm. Try substituting another crime into this scenario if you want to really see how ridiculous it is.

Just over the border in Colorado, another story emerged. As a defense to a medical malpractice suit, lawyers for St. Thomas More hospital, a Catholic hospital in Cañon City, Colorado, argued that a fetus is not a person.  The hospital is run by Catholic Health Initiatives, a national chain that follows the Ethical and Religious Directives of the Catholic Church authored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Part IV of the directives state “The Church’s defense of life encompasses the unborn and the care of women and their children during and after pregnancy. [at p23] Many people have crowed about the hypocrisy of championing the legal argument that a fetus is not a person while at the same time prohibiting abortion and contraception on the theory that life begins at conception.

In New Mexico, a fetus becomes evidence and at Catholic hospitals following the bishops’ directives, a fetus is a fetus in cases of medical malpractice, but not when someone would like access to contraceptives or abortion. In such cases, your ability to decide how and when to have a child or how to grieve for lives that you anticipated welcoming is interpreted through the prism of someone else’s ideology and whether its convenient for them to demonstrate some consistency.

Those who oppose the right to have an abortion need to demonstrate integrity to their position. Abortion is not felony “evidence tampering” and if life begins at conception, it does so even when money is at stake.

Rosie Wang, Resident Blogger (’14, Columbia Law School)

Here is an alarming fact that I didn’t know until recently: Some studies have found that it is actually more likely for a woman to conceive after rape than after consensual sex. So much for the woman’s body having a way to shut that down. On the contrary, this tragic reality seems to highlight the necessity of abortion as an option.  But what is behind the link between lack of consent and increased likelihood of conception?

Jonathan and Tiffani Gottschall looked at the results from the National Violence Against Women survey and found that out of the 405 women who said they had been raped, pregnancy occurred at rate of 6.42% Horrifyingly, this is more than twice the rate that women become pregnant from consensual sex. The Gottschalls eliminated a few possibilities: rape does not induce ovulation, nor is the sperm of the rapist unusually viable. One hypothesis they present is that of male choice. Supposedly, rapists target women who are young and desirable. And since the markers of beauty and the markers of high fertility overlap, a woman with high fecundity is more likely to be chosen by a rapist because of these physical cues. Various news outlets [Huffington Post here, Politico here, Washington Post here]  have trotted out these findings as a refutation against the blatant misinformation perpetuated by Todd Adkin and his ilk.

However, there is something very wrong with this picture.

First of all, rape is not primarily about sexual attraction, rape is about power and anger. Second, this type of correlation between visible fertility and rape veers straight into the territory of victim-blaming. I imagine wildly misguided “advice” based on these findings that puts the onus on the victims to obscure their physical cues of fertility. “If she had worn something baggier, that would have obscured her ideal hip to waist ratio, she wouldn’t have been raped.” Sadly, since two-thirds of rapes are committed by someone known to the victim, and 38% of rapists are a friend or acquaintance, it would seem like rapists do not target the women with the highest and strongest fertility cues, but those whose familiarity and trust they can exploit. Thus, even if some piece of information or research looks like a good argument for reproductive justice, it’s often worth it to dig a bit deeper and look at what the implications mean.

Catrina Otonoga, LSRJ Summer Legal Intern

The question, “when are they going to come up with something for men?” rings through my head countless times a month — as I take my birth control each day and wonder what it does to my body, as I stand in line at the pharmacist and charge another $60 to my credit card each month, and as I do another at home breast-exam and wonder if, maybe, years of birth control had anything to do with that lump in my breast.

Just late last month, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute announced a breakthrough in birth-control options for men, a hormonal gel that lowers sperm count with few side effects. No evidence of causing breast tenderness, nausea, mood changes or increased risks like blood clots or stroke. So far, just acne and slight increases in cholesterol.

This could do wonders for gender equity in hetero-normative relationships. Rather than women bearing the burden of balancing perceptions,(such as being sexy enough to need birth control, yet virginal enough to not have children), all the while paying for, regularly taking, and constantly worrying about birth control, men might be able to step into the fold of being concerned about the potential outcomes of having sex. Women continue to fight for autonomy over our bodies and our reproductive choices, including when and with whom we choose to get pregnant, or not. Access to the pill is a huge platform to effectively make that choice. Despite the times we are frustrated about weight gain or cost, we know that each time we take that pill we are exerting some control over what happens to us, and when.

In 2011, The National Domestic Violence Hotline released a study indicating that 1 in 4 women who agreed to answer questions after calling in to the hotline had experienced pressure to become pregnant, were told not to use birth control, or had experienced men hiding or throwing away birth control.

Every day, women of all backgrounds experience reproductive coercion, from long term efforts to undermine autonomy to one-night stands that refuse to wear a condom. For some women, reproductive decision making is not a dual decision, let alone a singular one. They don’t have a say in those “decisions” at all. So, while breakthroughs in contraceptive options for men are an important instep for many men and women to consider reproductive choice with their partner and with themselves, many women are struggling to own their reproductive choice.

Adding men to the conversation on reproductive rights, choice, and contraceptive decisions is an important move. Amplifying all women’s voices to be strong enough to make choices about their relationships and their reproductive futures is imperative.

Elisabeth Smith, LSRJ Summer Legal Intern

This is the third week of my summer internship at LSRJ and I love everyone and almost everything.

All the interns are busy updating LSRJ factsheets so that law students around the country have accurate information on a wide range of reproductive justice topics.  While updating my factsheets, I have come across the worst of the internet.  When researching CEDAW (the United Nations Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women), I found a webpage that warned people to call their representatives and demand that CEDAW never be ratified and the Violence Against Women Act be repealed because both are bad for families.

Confused? I was.  The website explained that actually women are just as likely to be abusers, lie about domestic violence, and many innocent men are behind bars. Okay, then.

Next I researched the Convention for the Rights of the Child and encountered a site that proclaimed “No CRC in the USA!” Why? According to this group, if the US ratified the CRC then children would have the right to reproductive health information and services (among other things). Heavens.

Finally, I researched China’s population policy and found a site suggesting that “ObamaCare” (for the record, the Affordable Care Act) includes provisions that would forbid Americans from having more than one child.

Okay, people, seriously. Let’s debate, let’s discuss policy differences, differing world views, different potential solutions, and let’s do so respectfully. But when the premise of your argument depends solely on misinformation and outright lies, I don’t want to give you a seat at the table.

I haven’t cited the blogs in question for one reason: I don’t want anyone else to visit them. In their honor, though, I would like to set the record straight.

1)       Women are more likely to be victims of both fatal and nonviolence at the hands of intimate partners.

2)     Children have a right to information about their bodies and reproductive health because abstinence-only education does not work: youth in the program group were no more likely than control group youth to have abstained from sex and, among those who reported having had sex, they had similar numbers of sexual partners and had initiated sex at the same mean age.

3)     The Affordable Care Act does not limit the number of child a person or family can have. It does mandate that insurance companies pay for well-baby and well-child visits, immunizations, and screening and counseling.

Reproductive justice imagines a world where people have the rights, the support, the information, and the resources to make decisions for themselves and their families, free from violence and oppression. I would like to surf the internet in that world.

Candace Gibson, University of Utah College of Law

It has been a whirlwind ride for me as a 3L.  Last summer, when I was planning my 3L year, I wasn’t thinking of starting a LSRJ chapter.  However, I became convinced by one of my mentors to start one. Now, I am sad to leave the U of U Law Students for Reproductive Justice Chapter.

We’ve had a great year. Unlike some of our sister chapters in the Mountain West, we did not have any bureaucratic obstacles to fight and so far, we have gained the respect of our student body and of the other student organizations.  Maybe, we’ll know we have arrived when there is a pro-life law students group on our campus.  We planned and co-hosted five panels, the topics ranged from academic scholarship in reproductive rights to domestic violence in immigrant communities to the valuable contributions of medical practitioners.  We made condom kits twice to help the HIV Prevention Program at the Utah Pride Center and we created a presentation around the legal issues that some Latina adolescents face in Salt Lake City.  We also tabled the months of October and November on various RJ topics.  It was a fun but exhausting year!

All of this could not have been done without the energy and work of our 2011-2012 board who stepped up when they needed to and told me that they were too exhausted to do another thing.   These moments remind me that when you are doing social justice work you have to set some boundaries or else you will be exhausted and no longer useful to your community or your movement.

The other important lesson I am learning is that we always need to mentor.  Often, as adults either pursuing education or because we are still getting our act together, we never think of ourselves as mentors but as mentees.  We need to keep thinking as chapter leaders and as members that we not only mentor during a transition meeting and after we have left, but that we are mentoring while we are leading our chapters and are mentored by our other chapter members.   As a movement, we need to keep mentoring so that we never become irrelevant or worse, we end up erasing the efforts of younger members by saying they aren’t doing anything. (I’m sure you have all heard about the comments made by older feminists who think that we younger feminists are only sitting on their laurels and twiddling our thumbs.)

Aside from these serious thoughts, I want you all to wish next year’s U of U Law Students for Reproductive Justice Chapter board the best of luck.  I’m thinking they will certainly put us one step closer to having our archrival, Law Students for the Right to Life, on campus.

Candace Gibson, University of Utah College of Law

*This post is part of a series written in support of Trust Women Week Silver Ribbon Campaign and the online virtual march from January 20-27. LSRJ is proud to partner with numerous orgs across the country – join the march by sending a message to your lawmakers today! And check back here throughout the week for more posts.

In May 2009, a 17-year-old girl in Naples, Utah, was pregnant.  She was charged with second-degree felony criminal solicitation to commit murder.  Why was she charged? She solicited a man to punch her in the stomach so that she would miscarry.  He accepted $150 from her, took her to the basement of his parent’s house, and kicked her in the stomach five times.  According to the young girl, who is now a young adult, she solicited the assault because her boyfriend threatened to break up with her if she did not terminate her pregnancy.  A juvenile court dismissed her case in 2009, but the Utah Supreme Court this past December reversed their decision.  They reasoned that an assault does not meet the statutory definition of abortion and now this young woman may face criminal penalties for this tragic incident in her life.

I don’t disagree with the Utah Supreme Court in saying that abortion as imagined by our state’s legislators is a medical procedure, although the term “medical” will most likely be co-opted by the Anti-Choice movement to exclude abortions achieved through pharmaceuticals (see the case of an Idaho woman who terminated her own pregnancy by ordering RU486 online and was charged  with a felony).  What I do disagree with is the numerous laws passed by state legislatures to restrict abortion services to the point that Roe v. Wade doesn’t make any impact in the lives of women who need it the most.  Remember what Justice Ginsburg said at the Aspen Institute in 2010, “If the court were to change its mind . . . the only women who would be truly affected are poor women. Because even at the time before Roe, women who wanted abortions could have a safe, legal abortion.”  The problem is, this great Justice has forgotten that most poor women still can’t have abortions because of the Hyde Amendment.

This young woman in Utah should have had the right to decide to be a parent, to give her born child up for adoption, or to have an abortion without emotional abuse from her boyfriend or having to deal with the heinous consequences and obstacles of laws that ultimately regulate abortions out of existence.  As the Guttmacher Institute said in their awesome video, “There will always be women who need abortions.”

Susy Prochazka, Thomas Jefferson School of Law

In our TJSL chapter, each member of the board is passionate about a different facet of the RJ movement.  This brings a great energy to our board and ensures that no one is ever bored (pun intended). To encourage this same vitality amongst our newest members, we decided early in the semester to have a different member of the board present on the topic of his or her particular passion at each monthly meeting in order to show the array of topics that RJ spans. Traditionally, our meetings were more informational and social in nature; through these presentations, we sought to increase the educational aspect of the monthly meetings.

Our secretary Margaret bravely volunteered to be the guinea pig of this experiment. As an intern at our local YWCA’s domestic violence clinic, Margaret wanted to promote October as Domestic Violence Awareness month at our school, which had remained conspicuously silent on the topic of DV in the past. Margaret did not limit herself to making a mere powerpoint citing the statistics and warnings signs of DV.  She completely committed herself to promoting the cause at our meeting by making shirts and ribbons and arranging a team for the “Mile in Her Shoes” charity walk that benefits a downtown safehouse program. Margaret’s dedication and energy was apparent during the meeting, and afterwards, two attendees, both of whom were attending their first ever LSRJ meeting, promptly signed up for the charity walk and inquired about other ways to promote DV awareness!  We considered the meeting a great success.

I went next. My interests lie in the realm of international human rights, so I focused on the theme of cultural restrictions on a woman’s right to choose. I presented on issues affecting women internationally that limit their right to exercise bodily autonomy, discussing some of the practices that impose these restrictions, such as honor killings, female genital cutting, forced marriages, and debt peonage/sex slavery.  I am no public speaker, but I tamped down my anxiety and spoke about what I am passionate about: addressing these international RJ issues. Afterwards I discussed international human rights internships with several members.  While I did not make fabulous shirts, as Margaret had, we are now planning a road trip to L.A. to see the Skirbal Museum Exhibit on the international oppression of women. With my area of focus, I felt that I was able to reach different people in the audience than Margaret had, which seems like a positive goal to have, as we are constantly engaging members in different ways. It was an experience that really let me really expound upon the area of law that I find fascinating while simultaneously snagging the attention of members interested in international law and drawing them into the discussion.

By letting our diverse interests lead the meetings, we are able to present a variety of topics to our members. We are pretty pleased with the level of interest that our presentations have generated, and the practice will continue into next semester.   Fascinated by health law, our co-president Thomas is arranging a panel regarding the legal implications of the different birthing options, whether adoption, traditional midwifery or obstetricians.  We look forward to another semester of harnessing our various passions in the RJ movement and using them to ensure our chapter’s diversity and longevity.

Candace Gibson, University of Utah College of Law

As many of you know, October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month.  For the past couple of years, the Women Lawyers of Utah and other Utah bar organizations have planned the Walk Against Violence as a way to fundraise for our local YWCA.  Because of this, the University of Utah Law Students for Reproductive Justice Chapter (UULSRJ) began its public relations efforts at our law school by tabling on various reproductive justice issues.  In this manner, we hope to educate people about reproductive justice in all its intersectional, multi issue glory.  So last week we tabled on domestic violence and in the coming weeks, we will table on infant and maternal mortality, global reproductive rights, and health disparities.

As we talked to students about our chapter, I noticed that we had some problems communicating what reproductive justice is as a concept and as a way of organizing.  I think there are two reasons for this.  First, we need to get better at our basic thirty second elevator spiel.  Second, I think when some people of my generation hear “reproductive” they automatically think of abortion and contraceptives.  In fact, as I was discussing the national LSRJ office and our multi-issue work to a classmate, she told me that she thought that the term “reproductive justice” wasn’t useful for our mission.  She thought we should use another phrase because to her, “reproductive justice” automatically links to “reproductive rights” and makes her think of only abortion and contraceptives.  As I talked to another peer, he said the same thing, and then I talked to a first year, and he had no clue what I was discussing.

So this begs three questions.  Can reproductive justice ever be explained in a sound bite like the “Pro-Choice” or “Pro-Life” communities describe themselves (and thus be easily digested) and, more importantly, do we even want that?  As a movement, do we need to better articulate what reproductive justice is and better publicize the work that we do on multiple issues?  This is tougher than it appears to be, as I think that because we constantly have to defeat onslaughts of anti-women and anti-family legislation, individuals outside our movement think that we only work on abortion and contraceptive issues.

While some of you ponder these questions, send your 30 second RJ soundbites my way!

Mallory Carlberg, University of Oklahoma Law School

Anyone who follows reproductive justice news knows that Oklahoma is often the testing ground for new anti-abortion legislation. State legislators pass bills through the House and Senate with ease. Even when a Governor vetoes a bill, both bodies often have the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto. Since the 2010 midterm election, the situation has only worsened. Our new Governor will not veto any anti-abortion measures, and our new Attorney General endorses redefining “persons” under the Fourteenth Amendment to include fetuses. Oklahoma politicians also routinely undermine other reproductive justice concerns, such as access to comprehensive sex education, family planning services, and social programs assisting struggling families.

The University of Oklahoma (OU) law school produces an excellent class of lawyers every year, most of whom will work in Oklahoma and Texas. A sizable amount will be the next generation of legislatures and judges. In classes, constitutionally protected rights are often discussed in a vacuum as if race, class, gender, sexuality and ability do not affect a person’s experience of their rights. One major goal in starting OU Law Students for Reproductive Justice (LSRJ) is to engage future Oklahoma lawmakers with reproductive rights in a deeper way. The RJ movement’s refusal to be a single-issue movement makes it ideal for building coalitions in a red state. Even if a student’s personal views are against abortion, we can often find common ground on other RJ issues like domestic violence, maternal health, and sex education.

At meetings we want to educate law students on issues they may not have considered and re-complicate the already complicated issue of abortion. This process will start with our upcoming event RJ 101. OU LSRJ members are also helping with “Take Root: Red State Perspectives on Reproductive Justice.” OU, RJ non-profits and RJ community groups have come together to bring a conference to OU next semester, which will focus on red-state specific issues. The conference will showcase national and local leaders and provide young, RJ activists with a space to meet and exchange ideas.

Though our state may have further to go than others to achieve RJ for all, the willingness of OU law students to discuss these issues and the support OU LSRJ has received from faculty inspires me. There is a small, but growing group of Oklahomans who are dedicated to bringing these issues to light. I am excited for OU LSRJ members to bring that conversation to the law school.