Questions and answers on International Women’s Day with LSRJ’s founding executive director, Cari Sietstra, JD, Stanford ’02.

What do you do?

Since leaving my post as the founding executive director at LSRJ – a great job, if ever there was one – I’ve been an “independent consultant specializing in reproductive health and justice.”  Over time I’ve developed expertise in long-term conflict and crisis settings. 

Wait, what does “consultant in reproductive health and justice” mean, exactly?

While it could mean a number of different things, for me it means that for the past six years I’ve pitched potential projects to donors and then partnered with non-profits so the donor’s money is tax deductible and my work is done under an institutional umbrella.  I have a great deal of autonomy and flexibility.  I am based in the US but spend time each year in Thailand and sometimes Burma.

Most of my projects are located on the Thai/Burma border and focus on refugees, undocumented migrants, or internally displaced persons.  My colleagues and I are particularly interested in reducing harm from unsafe abortion, expanding access to emergency contraception and long acting reversible contraceptives like IUDS, and promoting adolescent reproductive health.

What does reproductive health look like where you work?

Basically, eastern Burma has been a conflict zone for more than sixty years.  So reproductive health indicators and maternal mortality rates are by far the worst in Asia and among the worst anywhere in the world.  Unsafe abortion and post-partum hemorrhage are the leading causes of maternal mortality.  There are extensive barriers to achieving reproductive justice including lack of family planning supplies and education, legal barriers to safe abortion, a lack of trained medical providers, early marriage (sometimes coerced or forced), and lack of access to basic healthcare and adequate nutrition.

For an in-depth discussion of reproductive heath in this area of the world, please check out the report Separated by Borders: united in need that our team just published with Ibis Reproductive Health.

You mentioned a “team” – who do you work with?

I am lucky to work with a team of exceptional women who include a doctor-researcher, a nurse, and the wonderful Maggie Hobstetter, another LSRJ alum. Maggie first came out to the border as an international legal intern for LSRJ in 2007.

Maggie and I have led a safe referral pilot project to connect undocumented Burmese migrants in Thailand with a safe, legal abortion.  (Abortion is legal in some cases in Thailand.)

Do you use your law degree in your work?

I do, especially on projects like the safe referral pilot, where we’ve trained Burmese and Thai health care providers on Thai law – what it is, how it’s interpreted and implemented, how to recognize women who qualify for legal abortions, etc.

But I don’t use most of the “hard” advocacy skills I practiced in law school.  My colleagues and I try hard to avoid any direct advocacy or persuasion.

We don’t tell the Burmese medics we work with that they “should” support legal abortion or that they “should” give unmarried couples family planning.  What we do is give them information that legal abortion is very safe (this is often absolutely new to them).  We share human rights documents that uphold the rights of both married and unmarried people to access reproductive healthcare.  But when folks say things like, “I think abortion is a sin,” or “unmarried couples should not have sex,” we don’t push back.  As outsiders, that isn’t our role.  Our role is facilitate difficult conversations about controversial issues in reproductive health and to empower local advocates with information and support.

Do you feel like that attitude reflects a reproductive justice framework?

I do.  I think the best way I can do work in a long-term crisis setting as a well-educated foreigner is to respect the values and priorities of the people I work with while still offering up information on a full-range of reproductive health technologies and rights.

You can’t just walk into an isolated, conflict-affected area and be all, “Hi, I’d like to give you some EC, IUDs and safe abortions. And can I talk to your teenagers too?”  People would be like, “Hi, crazy white lady.  Thanks but no thanks.”

It’s taken years of work to build the strong trust we have with our local partners.  And to do so we’ve tried to be clear that while we are very willing to push boundaries in terms of the work we do, we will always try to meet people where they are on these issues and respect profound differences of opinion.  It’s been an amazing way to create what we hope will be lasting social change.  Our motto is: “Baby steps.  It’s all about baby steps.”

We understand that in a long-term conflict setting we will not be able to fix the overall health situation until the core issue of the conflict itself is resolved.  But small interventions can make huge differences in the lives of women, families, and communities.

Nikola Nable-Juris & Meredith Leeson, University of Maryland School of Law

After our first year of law school, we knew a lot about the law–elements of a negligence claim, reasons a contract may be unenforceable, and the mens rea needed for different criminal charges.  However, for those of us looking to relate these principles to real life, the core courses of our education failed to reflect our personal and political realities.  Torts class neglected to mention tort claims for forced sterilization or medical complications resulting from being shackled during delivery, and Contracts class kept silent on contracts between same-sex couples creating families.  We entirely missed the range of criminal charges for pregnant women who struggle with addiction in Criminal Law, and Roe v. Wade made only a brief appearance in second year Constitutional Law.  Even electives like health law or family law that touch on some of these issues often lack a comprehensive intersectional analysis.  Instead of being frustrated by what we weren’t being taught, University of Maryland’s LSRJ chapter channeled its energy into proposing the course we wanted to take—a Reproductive Justice (RJ) course.

In early September 2010, with a small executive board and a designated Course Campaign Coordinator, we launched a course campaign on Maryland’s campus.  The Coordinator researched which other law schools had existing RJ courses (only 39 schools offer a reproductive rights law or justice course), examined their curriculums, and gathered over 300 student signatures of support by tabling in the hallway and giving short presentations in classes. The Coordinator compiled all of this information into a comprehensive proposal, including a list of eleven other student organizations in support of the course, an alumni letter of support, and the 2010 LSRJ Course Survey (updated 2011 LSRJ Course Survey here).  We presented this proposal to the Law School’s Associate Dean for Academic Programs with arguments for why this course was necessary.  We are proud to announce that the University of Maryland will be offering “Reproductive Justice and the Law” in Spring 2012, taught by Professor Leslie Meltzer Henry.  For those of us who recognize the RJ framework to be a valuable viewpoint, this course will be critical to our education as informed social justice advocates. Even for those who are new to reproductive rights, the RJ course will provide an important foundation for understanding some of the most important and contentious political and social issues of our times.

In law school, we are taught to be advocates, whether as litigators, policy makers, or impartial decision makers. As students, we must begin our advocacy careers by taking charge of shaping our own legal education. In addition to resulting in a fantastic course, a course campaign allows students to build networks of like-minded students and faculty, interact with school administrators, and spread the word about RJ to diverse audiences on campus. By campaigning for the RJ courses at our own school, we learned the fundamentals of being advocates even before setting foot in the courtroom.

Recently, the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC), the organization that administers the LSAT, refused to accommodate a nursing mother who asked for additional break time to pump her breast milk. You can read more about it here. Two members of the LSRJ family want to share their thoughts on the situation: new mom Sara Taylor (’11, University of Michigan Law School) and resident blogger Joanne Caceres (’13, Harvard Law School).

If you want to take action, visit the ACLU Women’s Rights Project website.

Dear LSAC:

I am writing to ask you to seriously reconsider the Law School Admissions Council’s alleged policy of refusing accommodations for breast feeding women during the LSAT.  Breast feeding is not an ethos, it’s a serious physical issue that deserves serious consideration.

As a nursing mother, I would not think twice about asking for accommodation.  Having to be away from my infant and pump is an incredibly inconvenient enterprise, and one that I have to engage in as a working mother who ascribes to medical studies that breast milk has marvelous and unparalleled health benefits for my daughter.  I already have to suffer a great many social consequences for this choice.  This is the new century but people are no less disparaging of breast feeding in public.  While out, there are no outlets or chairs in public restrooms.  I have frequently had to feed my daughter bent over a changing table or sitting on a toilet.  While working, I have to find twenty minutes and an available conference room with a locking door and no windows, then I get to carry my pump equipment to the bathroom to wash it and find a spare spot in the fridge for all to see.  But I do it willingly, I do it for her.

I recently received a job interview that required travel.  I asked if, as a nursing mother, I could bring my daughter.  In the alternative, I asked to be gone no more than two days because I would have to pump milk ahead of time (which is exhausting and laborious).

The schedulers went out of their way to accommodate me, letting me take my daughter as a lap infant and making sure travel was short and that I had everything I needed.  And they did so as a pure matter of course, no problem at all.  I thought to myself, how wonderfully far we’ve come, when ten years ago I would have been afraid to mention that I was a mother when going to an interview, and I can now mention it and no one thinks twice.

When a nursing mother tells you they need time off to pump, they are not asking for any favors.  A pump isn’t the functional equivalent of a child; it doesn’t get all the milk out, reduces output later, extracts milk forcefully, and it requires lugging the pump around, washing out all the parts, and finding a way to store or dump the milk.  Pumping for 20 minutes doesn’t yield much milk and it takes about 45 minutes just to do it.  Plus, having that many calories removed from you at once is exhausting!  It’s a major hassle – it is not something one would choose to do unless they needed to do it.

Disappointingly few mothers are applying to law school and their perspective is both meaningful and worth cultivating.  Let’s try and minimize their barriers to entry wherever possible.  Pumping itself is a barrier, why in the world would you make it harder than that?

A proudly pumping attorney,

Sara Taylor (’11, University of Michigan Law School)

***********************

I’m sure anyone who keeps track of reprorights issues has heard about LSAC’s refusal to accommodate a nursing mother during the LSAT. After outreach from the ACLU, MomsRising and other advocates, LSAC’s response was that it was under no legal obligation to provide such accommodations. We should be mad at the policies of LSAC, and reach out to let them know this behavior isn’t acceptable. However, what is most troubling to me in not that in this day and age an organization could be so callous, it’s that we are moved to public outrage and letter writing because LSAC is right, they have no legal obligation to accommodate a nursing mother who is not an employee. I think that’s the real problem.

For all the benefits and advances women have thanks to Title IX in school and Title VII in employment, moments like these should remind us that those two laws do not encompass all of society. The most recent outrage with LSAC is a great illustration of the role private businesses—who may be restricted from discriminating against female employees but not clients—can affect something as fundamental to the American notion of equality as education.

So what should be done? Don’t let this blog serve to keep you from writing to LSAC. Public shaming does work to make single organizations fix audacious behavior in some instances. It may even cause other testing companies (whose policies I don’t know) to think hard before denying a similar request from a nursing mother in the future. Perhaps a case can be made to extend Title IX to private organizations whose services are used for entry into an educational program or activity that accepts federal funding. But if we want to promote more systemic change, I think we need better laws to protect women’s rights outside of work and the classroom. To do that, we need more pro-women politicians in office!

Joanne Caceres, Harvard Law School

Galen Sherwin, ACLU Women’s Rights Project

This entry is cross-posted from the ACLU Blog of Rights

Women should not be forced to choose between breastfeeding their babies and pursuing a legal education — right?

Wrong — at least according to the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC), the organization that administers the LSAT.

This summer, our sister organization, MomsRising, contacted us about one of their members, Ashley (she prefers that we use only her first name), a new mom who was planning to take the LSAT in October. Ashley had asked for additional break time so that she could pump breast milk for her 5 month old son during the test. (It typically takes half an hour to pump, but the LSAT only has one 15 minute break during the test). Her request was denied — when she initially called to request this accommodation, she was told she would either have to take the test under standard procedure, wean her baby in time for the October 1 test date, or opt to take the test at a later time when she was no longer breastfeeding. Seriously.

When we looked into her case, we learned that LSAC has a blanket policy of refusing such requests from women who are breastfeeding, because they are not considered “disabled.” This puts breastfeeding women at a significant disadvantage. Babies typically eat every two to three hours; if moms are away from their babies and aren’t able to empty their breasts on the same schedule, it causes pain, possible infection, and reduction in milk supply. Without sufficient time to pump, Ashley, and other moms in her position, will become increasingly uncomfortable as the test progresses—a serious distraction that could lead to a lower score, not to mention the health risks.

Because the LSAT is one of the gateways to law school admission — it is universally used by U.S. law schools as a primary admissions criterion — this policy creates a barrier to women’s entry into the entire legal profession. And law is not the only profession with this problem in its testing system. A few years ago, a woman in Massachusetts had to get a court order so that she could pump during the Medical Licensing Examination.

In a phone call yesterday, the general counsel of LSAC, Joan VanTol, was unresponsive to arguments about inequality in educational opportunity, and merely reiterated her position that LSAT was under no legal obligation to offer Ashley an accommodation. Essentially, the message LSAC appears to be sending is that it does not care whether this policy disadvantages women.

When I called Ashley and told her that LSAC was not budging, she said (with some feeling), “I’m taking that exam on Saturday, no matter what.” But she still wants to push to change the policy, because “it’s just not right.” It sounds like she’s on track to become a kick-ass lawyer.

TAKE ACTION >> Send an e-mail to the Board and CEO of LSAC, urging them to change their policy and allow nursing mothers reasonable accomodations during the LSAT! Then, post the following to Twitter, to send them a message and to spread the word to your friends:

Hey @Official_LSAT! Don’t shut nursing moms out of law school! Change your policy to accommodate breastfeeding women! http://aclu.org/LSAT

As a special bonus action, if you’re really riled up, you can go to LSAC’s Facebook page, a post the same message above there as well. Let ‘em know how you really feel!

This is the last in a series of reflection posts by our outgoing (and inaugural) class of Reproductive Justice Fellows. Visit the RJFP page for more information about the program.

Reflecting on my fellowship year at the Rebecca Project for Human Rights is really wonderful.  Not only do I feel that I’ve honed the skills required for fierce policy advocacy here in DC, but I also witnessed and participated in some truly remarkable moments.

As a Law and Policy Fellow at a small organization, I learned the necessity of being a sort of Jill-of-all-trades – remaining strategic and hard-working, but able to adapt on a dime.  There was never a dull moment as I attended hearings, briefings, spoke at events, participated in roundtables and coalitions, researched and wrote policy papers, developed fact sheets and talking points, and planned events (to name a few).

But, it was my experience working with our mother advocates and girl leaders-in-training that affected me most.  Within a month of starting as a Fellow, I aided in bringing members from our national network of mother leaders to the Hill.  Most of these mothers had never before done advocacy, and had certainly never been to DC.  Watching them find empowerment in their lived experience while talking to Representatives, Senators, and staffers was absolutely amazing.

Here in DC we work every day with access – to policymakers, to stakeholders, to power.  I’ve learned the language of that access in my Fellowship year; learned how to make it work.  But I feel very lucky to have learned it through the eyes of those mothers with whom I first visited the Hill.  I will always, always carry a mother or a girl with me – spiritually and figuratively – when I do this work.  Because in RJ, we work to amplify, translate, and represent those that do not speak the language of access, so that justice really is for all.

Jessi Leigh Swenson

2010-2011 RJ Fellow at the Rebecca Project for Human Rights

When I began my fellowship at the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF), I was thrilled to work for a progressive multi-issue organization whose focus was on API women and girls. Like many social justice advocates in law school, I had a hard time with the limited discussion of underlying factors which result in inequity that is glossed over during lectures in which we master the law of contracts, civil procedure, property, torts, and criminal procedure during our first year. I was so excited to find and join the Law Students for Reproductive Justice Chapter at my law school. Through the group, I found a space in which to create events and programs that fed my passion for social justice. I was also able to begin to connect the dots between legal theory and reality of communities.

I was thrilled to have the chance to continue that work in a professional capacity. What I soon discovered was that I was going to be living the idea that we become what we are seeking. At various point in my legal career, I wondered where the voices of women of color and low income people were, why they were not part of decision making that had a direct impact on their lives. During my fellowship year, I soon became consumed with increasing the voice and visibility of API women and girls. I did this through creating fact sheets, helping to mobilize our members to contact their representatives about various bills, working with coalitions on various pieces of legislation, participating in administrative advocacy around implementation of the affordable care act, and conducting legislative visits about the implications of various bills on API women and girls. I also had several moments of celebrity encounters for nerds as I got to be in the same space as the President, First Lady, Supreme Court Justices, advocates whose work I have admired, and members of Congress. I also feel like a big shot as I got to attend receptions, conferences, and meetings at the West Wing, Capitol and various congressional offices. I even had a moment of being tongue tied when I was in a meeting with Kalpen Modi.

My experience with public speaking was the biggest surprise of the year. I got to face my fear of public speaking pretty frequently. The challenge got heightened when I was speaking on topics that I knew the audience did not fully agree with me on and/or did not know much about; I felt like I was learning a dance in which I had to get people interested in the topic and then in agreement on the things we had in common. What began as an area in which I needed improvement turned into one of my strongest skills. I had become the voice I wanted to hear more of during my legal career. I also realized that transforming a perceived weakness into an actual strength was a way that I internalized NAPAWF’s work on increasing voice and visibility of API women and girls. During presentations, I inserted a bit of my personal story. During workshops on transforming a culture of son preference, I worked to make room for participants to share their story. The ways in which API women as a community and as individuals are seen and heard is when we speak our truth even when our voices shake and knots form in our stomach. Transformation does not wait for perfection; it needs action to be realized. Thank you LSRJ for the privilege of being part of the inaugural class and thank you funders for making it possible for me to have such an amazing year! As I go forward in my legal career, I know that the experiences I had at NAPAWF will make me a better advocate.

Jaspreet Chowdhary (’10 Seattle University School of Law)

2010-2011 RJ Fellow at the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum

Last weekend I was grabbing drinks with a friend who used to work “in the movement” and she asked me, “So what’s going on with our reproductive rights? Are we doing anything about this?” As I started to explain the important work advocates are doing and my optimism about the fate of reproductive justice policy in the long-term, I found myself recounting many of the experiences I had during my fellowship year.

I was placed with the Women’s Health and Rights Program at the Center for American Progress (CAP). CAP is a think tank that develops new policy ideas, critiques policy that stems from conservative values, and challenges the media to cover the issues that truly matter and shape the national debate. The Women’s Health and Rights Program incorporates a reproductive justice framework into this work.

My fellowship year has been filled with invaluable opportunities for learning and growth thanks to the Director of the Women’s Health & Rights Program, Jessica Arons, and Senior Fellow Shira Saperstein, who are incredibly smart, quick, thoughtful, and creative (hence my aforementioned optimism).  But one of the most significant takeaways from my year at CAP is about the importance of collaboration.

It seems obvious, right? It is, especially since I’m not new to the DC machine. Yet CAP’s unique organizational structure – various teams and sub-teams divided by policy area, each with experts in the given field – gave me a lesson in how to strategically collaborate with seemingly un-usual suspects.

One example of this type of cross-cutting collaboration was on the issue of access to abortion for women in the military. Much has been done by reproductive rights and justice advocates to argue that servicewomen deserve coverage for the full range of reproductive health services. Congress gets it – the “women’s rights-ers” don’t like military health care. Perhaps we could use an additional messenger.

Enter Lawrence Korb, a Senior Fellow for CAP’s national security team and seasoned military expert.  Among other things, Korb served as Assistant Secretary of Defense during the Reagan Administration. He also thinks the military’s health care for servicewomen is inadequate. Thanks to this connection, the unlikely voice of a former Department of Defense official is speaking out about the DoD’s unfair reproductive health policy. (Read Korb’s op-ed here).

I was able to collaborate with many other teams at CAP on reproductive justice issues – not only broadening the available expertise, but also broadening the audience. Every little bit helps in this town. I am grateful to Jessica and Shira and LSRJ for showing me that although issues may appear siloed, there are opportunities for strategic collaborations!

Alex Walden (’10 University of San Francisco School of Law)

2010-2011 RJ Fellow at the Center for American Progress

This is the third in a series of reflection posts by our outgoing (and inaugural) class of Reproductive Justice Fellows. Click here and here for the first and second entries and visit the RJFP page for more information about the program.

Hard to believe an entire year has gone by!  It was just a year ago that I graduated law school, sat for the bar exam, and moved to the DC area.  As I finish my last full week at my host organization, the Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum (APIAHF), I find myself reflecting on the amazing year I’ve had in the policy world and the wonderful start to my career this provided.

As a fellow at APIAHF, I’ve been immersed in the world of health policy, working on a number of exciting issues, including the recently passed Affordable Care Act, or Health Care Reform.  Over the past year, I’ve been able to see firsthand how federal policy is made, including through legislative and administrative advocacy.  I’ve become friends with the Federal Register, a goldmine of information for all things federal, and learned the importance of making sure the voices of underserved communities are heard.

My time at APIAHF has been a whirlwind and has felt like policy boot camp.  I couldn’t have come to DC at a better time to work on health care issues, and I am excited for the newest LSRJ fellow to continue where I’ve left off.  I am indebted to LSRJ for funding this once in a lifetime experience, as well as my supervisor who gave me the support and strength to push myself each day.

Amina Farhadi (’10 UNC School of Law)

2010-2011 RJ Fellow at the Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum

This is the second in a series of reflection posts by our outgoing (and inaugural) class of Reproductive Justice Fellows. Click here for the first entry and visit the RJFP page for more information about the program.

Has it already been a year?  Although the bar exam seems like ages ago, it feels like I just moved to D.C. to start my LSRJ fellowship.  My placement was with the National Health Law Program (NHeLP), an organization that works to further access to quality health care for low-income individuals and underserved populations, primarily by providing legal expertise on Medicaid.

Looking back over the year, I am amazed at how much I learned.  When I started at NHeLP, I knew next to nothing about Medicaid.  There was so much to learn – and I was almost certain I would never be able to grasp the complexities in this area of law by the end of my fellowship.

Then, at around six months in, things began to click.  For the remainder of my fellowship, I actively contributed to policy strategy, and I finished research in almost half the time than when I started.  It was also around this time that I began feeling comfortable training and presenting on Medicaid coverage of reproductive health care.  Better yet, others at outside organizations began calling me for advice and input on issues around Medicaid and health care reform.

Now as my fellowship comes to an end and I prepare to transition into my new role as staff attorney, I am looking forward to helping the new LSRJ fellow learn the ropes.  I am incredibly grateful to LSRJ and am proud to have been part of the inaugural fellowship class.  Thank you LSRJ!

Davida Silverman (’10, CUNY School of Law)

2010-2011 RJ Fellow at the National Health Law Program

Thanks to my amazing host organization, the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, my fellowship year has been amazing and I am sad it is ending so soon. On any given morning, I am throwing on a pair of heels and walking over to my first meeting. In that meeting, I sit around a conference table with ten other attorneys who know the games in DC; they know everyone in the administration and everyone in Congress. In this meeting, we create a plan for drafting official comments to Health and Human Services encouraging them to consider certain facts about women in the new health care reform. I add information about the health disparities that Latinas face.

Afterward, I grab the metro and pop up to Capitol Hill where I meet another group of activists in front of a Senators office. We gather the briefs we have been writing, confirm our agenda and then go in and introduce ourselves. We sit down with the Senator’s lead attorney to explain our issue. In this particular meeting, the Senator comes in after her vote on the Senate floor and sits down with us. She confirms that she does support this issue, appreciates the information we gathered, and explains that she is interested in speaking on the floor on behalf of women of color on this issue. Great! We let her know that we are prepared to help. Now, we have to go, we have two more meetings. Number two goes well, but the last is horrible and the legislative assistant is less than kind and barely lets us speak at all. There isn’t too much time to dwell on it. I’ve got to get back to the office to work on a memo that is due to my supervisor on yet another issue. It’s now 5:30pm and we have an invitation to see President Obama speak at a galla for immigrant rights, its time to thrown on a dress and make my way to the event. After waiting until the very end of the event to be sure to shake hands with the President, it is time to get home before it all starts again tomorrow.

This has been my life for the last year as an LSRJ Legal Fellow. It has been a non-stop whirl wind of advocacy work. I have had so many once-in-a-lifetime experiences in this one year that they are impossible to count. I have learned from the best about how to advocate for the most disadvantaged people in our communities, especially women and people of color. These skills, and the confidence that came with their practice, have shaped me into the advocate I have dreamed of being.

I am endlessly grateful to my supervisors who integrated me into even the most important pieces of the work the organization does, to the LSRJ staff who were always available for mentoring, and the funders who made this year possible.

Dani Hawkes (’10, University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law)

2010-2011 RJ Fellow at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health