Law Students for Reproductive Justice at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, CA held “Violence Awareness Week” (or V-Week) between February 15 and February 17 to raise awareness about domestic and sexual violence faced by women around the globe. 

We used the three days as both an awareness campaign and as a method to collect toiletries to donate to a local women’s shelter. A large colorful poster bearing violence-related statistics was on display behind our table, and handouts were available for those wishing to learn more.  Each day we posted a different question passersby could answer in an attempt to win a prize. The prizes were shirts that read “Don’t Turn Your Back on Violence Against Women.” One question was “what percentage of women are physically or sexually assaulted each year by either a husband or intimate partner or someone they know?” While a handful of people attempted fair guesses each day, the question on the last day (a nod to this being “National Condom Week”) yielded the most responses: a jar containing condoms was on display and students were urged to guess “how many condoms are in the jar?”  

Finally, our members asked students to take a picture for UNIFEM’s Get Crossed campaign, which urges people to take a stand and “Say No to Sexual Violence in Conflict.” A large red canvas sheet that read “Stop Rape Now” was the backdrop for the pictures where people stood with their arms crossed in the shape of an “X” to demonstrate their solidarity with the campaign. The week of activities was a huge success for our chapter as it garnered a substantial amount of attention from students and faculty.  

Jenn Kish

Reproductive justice remains an unfulfilled promise for Latin American (LA) women. This is particularly the case with regard to abortion. With the exception of Mexico City and Puerto Rico, the region’s laws still embrace either a model of total criminalization (i.e., Chile, Nicaragua or El Salvador) or variations of a hardly accessible model of indications (i.e., Argentina, Brazil, Colombia or Peru). Moreover, irrespectively of the regulatory approach adopted, LA abortion laws share at least two traits: (a) they are largely non-complied with by women forced to resort to backstreet abortions in significant numbers; and (b) they are extensively unenforced both from the point of view of criminal prosecution and from the perspective of the duty to provide legal abortion services when indications are the rule. Another common characteristic of the region’s abortion rules is the stability of the practices of noncompliance and under-enforcement. A stability that has endured the transitions to democracy underwent by a majority of LA countries since the 1980s. As it has proved to be the case with other women rights issues during such transitions, in Latin America, democratization did not equal liberalization.

Faced with the reluctance to embark or even address abortion law reform by politicians and players from all sides in the ideological spectrum, LA feminists turned to international human rights law in search of another tool to promote a liberalizing reinterpretation of domestic laws. Indeed, in the years following the UN Conferences in Vienna, El Cairo and Beijing, feminists increasingly began to explore alternative uses of what was then slowly becoming a more woman friendly international human rights law with respect to many issues, reproductive rights among them. As part of this shift, feminist organizations timidly began to bring cases to international forums. Such feminist move towards international law in the quest for reproductive justice reforms took place in a context in which the internalization of international human rights had achieved some potential and where transnational networks of activists were successfully building a common legal language.

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Along with at least 65% of other Americans, law students and lawyers believe there is a right to health care that ought to be enforced in the United States.  For many of us, common sense dictates that people should be able to control how, when, and whether we bear children and that we must have access to accurate information, quality services, and resources necessary to support these decisions.

However, many of us also learn in law school that common sense isn’t the foundation of the U.S. legal system.  When we study Constitutional Law, we discover that this great document doesn’t actually hold the government accountable for anything affirmative, but rather restrains itself from intervening in people’s lives.  On the surface, that sounds reasonable and just.

Until we learn that other countries’ constitutions actually hold governments accountable to respect, protect, and fulfill rights — protecting people from the injustices that occur when recognized rights and values are not backed up by strong public policies and the resources necessary to implement them.  This concept is both foreign and fascinating.  So, we enroll in International Law, Transnational Law, and Human Rights courses to dig deeper.  Unfortunately, these courses tend to focus on trade, war, or humanitarian law — very rarely on reproductive rights.

LSRJ believes that human rights law has much to offer us, establishing a framework for envisioning government as a positive force that ensures adequate health and well-being for all people.  Human rights law provides both analytical and strategic tools for reproductive justice advocates, positioning human dignity at the center of claims for the protection, promotion, and fulfillment of basic rights.  In that vein, LSRJ is excited to honor this Human Rights Day by promoting our newest set of resource materials for law students — the Human Rights Law Primer.  This guide lays out where reproductive rights are embedded in international human rights law and provides useful commentary to help us think about how human rights law can inform our RJ advocacy in the U.S. context and abroad. (more…)

As I thought harder about the question, I realized that while the civil rights delineated on our Constitution may not demand comprehensive sexuality education, various international human rights documents and directives do. Like the American Constitution, human rights law applies to state action. Unlike the Constitution, however, human rights law demands that nation states take affirmative steps to ensure that all persons have the means and conditions necessary to enjoy their rights.

Several treaties specifically support adolescents’ right to comprehensive information about sex and sexuality, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The rights enshrined in these documents do not carry binding legal force in U.S. courts because Congress has not ratified them. However, many courts—including the Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas—have cited human rights documents and doctrine as persuasive authority.

Even though international human rights law has various applications to the domestic struggle for reproductive justice, most law students—past and present—have to go outside the classroom to learn about them.  Law Students for Reproductive Justice (LSRJ), a national nonprofit organization that supports law students around the country in their efforts to promote reproductive justice, is filling the gaps left by our coursework.   With resources like the new Human Rights Law Primer and Human Rights on the Home Front Easy Event in an Envelope, LSRJ provides the next generation of legal experts with the information and skills we will need to make reproductive rights a reality for all people.  With these tools, aspiring legal scholars and advocates like me can enter practice ready to articulate well-reasoned arguments that demand access to a full range of reproductive health services and induce government action to effectuate those rights. (more…)

As most of you heard the Nelson-Hatch amendment failed in the Senate this week. Many reproductive organizations, among others, launched a visible grass-roots campaign to make sure that this Stupak-like amendment was not included in the Senate’s version of a health reform bill. Some were critical that pro-choice groups did not work proactively enough to defeat these measures before the debate entered the public arena.  I had informal discussions with friends regarding the matter. On one hand, I am frustrated that advocates for reproductive justice are once again in a reactionary position (defeat Stupak-Pitts! defeat Nelson-Hatch!) rather than proactively advocating for expansive and inclusive reproductive justice measures. I am also concerned that other important reproductive justice issues are being ignored in the public debate. What about affordability, prevention, and immigrant rights?   

On the other hand, I do not think it is fair to place all responsibility and blame for the passage of the Stupak amendment on just two organizations. I have heard some say that advocates hoped to work quietly behind the scenes to avoid turning the federal health reform debate into an abortion debate. What is the appropriate role for reproductive health, rights, and justice organizations? What can we learn from the Stupak-Pitts and Nelson-Hatch advocacy efforts? How can we work better moving forward?

Jennifer Smith

The American health care system has been largely criticized over the last couple of years as administratively burdening, financially inefficient and inaccessible leaving millions of people uninsured without any medical care at all.  But let us look now at the other side of the spectrum: the universal health care systems adopted in most of the European countries. 

The founding idea of universal health care systems is based upon providing health care coverage to all or as widely as possible through some form of government action.  The idea took different forms in different countries throughout Europe according to various socio-economic and cultural circumstances.  In Scandinavian countries and the United Kingdom, for example, the government has a high degree of control in developing and providing health care, basing the eligibility criteria upon residency and not on one’s ability to pay.  In these countries every facet of health care is covered primarily from tax revenues, so that beneficiaries need not pay anything.  Other countries such as France and Serbia developed systems based on mandatory medical insurance with contributory insurance rates deducted from salaries or income, which are usually jointly funded by employers and beneficiaries.  The insurance rates, however, are kept low through subsidies, thus they are considerably lower than US rates.  Sometimes the health care funds are derived from a mixture of insurance premiums and government taxes, and many countries use mixed public-private systems to deliver universal health care.

Although the idea was first achieved on a national level in Germany, in the 1880s, through reforms conducted by Otto von Bismarck, one of the most socialized systems of universal health care today is the English health care system provided by the National Health Service (NHS).  The NHS services are available to all irrespective of an individual’s ability to pay.  The services include among other things; primary care, long-term health care, dentistry, psychiatric care, in-patient care.  Hospitals provide treatment either free or at minimal charges with certain exceptions for optical and dental care (which are still free for elderly, unemployed, children and people on low incomes).  Private health care paid by private insurance coexists with the NHS, but it only covers approximately 10% of the population, providing merely acute care from specialists.  

As idealistic as it sounds, the idea of a universal health care system is not without problems in its practical application.  (more…)

In her feature on the supposed generational divide in the pro-choice movement, which ran in Sunday’s New York Times, Sheryl Gay Stolberg correctly observes that abortion has hit the headlines recently in the context of health care reform and the horrendously restrictive Stupak amendment—and it’s not something reproductive rights advocates are happy about.  But there isn’t much else I can relate to in her assessment of the current landscape in reproductive rights advocacy and activism.  In fact, I think the story—which argues that there is a chasm between the “menopausal militia,” meaning the generation of feminists who came of age before Roe v. Wade and view abortion in “stark political terms,” and the “millennials,” the younger set for whom Stolberg suggests abortion is a personal issue—misses the mark in a sad but revealing way.

Relying on quotes from Naral Pro-Choice America president Nancy Keenan, Stolberg promotes this political/personal dichotomy without actually explaining how this supposed shift to the personal manifests itself—other than the fact that the post-Roe generations seem less responsive to single-issue pro-choice calls to action.  Provocative accompanying artwork, which consists of a black rectangle with brightly colored letters spelling “WE” floating above “ME,” implies that younger women are selfish in neglecting abortion politics.  Yet Stolberg acknowledges that “a clear majority of Americans support the right to abortion, and there’s little evidence of a difference between those over 30 and under 30.”  In fact, she herself points to several examples of young people organizing right now to stop the Stupak amendment (including LSRJ’s recent webinar on abortion and health care reform legislation).  So what’s the issue?

Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg concludes that young people don’t respond to email alerts about contacting their legislators because they know abortion is legal and believe “if you really need one you can probably figure out how to get one.”  Which means not only are we selfish, but we’re also foolishly complacent.  But what about the millions of poor women, immigrant women, and young women who can’t ever “figure out how to get one” because the barriers we’ve erected to accessing legal abortion are simply too high?  Such women may be forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term or to induce an abortion through other means, with serious consequences for the health and security of themselves and their families.  And what about those of us who aren’t poor, immigrant, or under 18 but believe deeply that how our society treats those women reflects on all of us, individually and collectively? (more…)

Because most participants in the insurance exchange would receive some federal subsidy (the New York Times reports that “anyone earning less than $88,000 for a family of four — four times the poverty level — would be eligible for a subsidy under the House bill”), insurers in the exchange are strongly incentivized to cut abortion coverage from their offerings. The result?  A de facto ban on abortion coverage within the insurance exchange – a ban which would affect even those who don’t receive federal health subsidies.

There are many stories to be told here, but I’ll limit myself to just a few. First, even if we’re not losing the culture war, Democrats apparently think we are. Disturbingly, 20 Dems with pro-choice track records voted in favor of the Stupak Amendment; at least 11 of them are in vulnerable positions for 2010, and they presumably believe that a vote for reproductive health is more dangerous than a vote for health reform. (Nate Silver points out that voter polls indicate the contrary.) The Left collectively needs to grapple with some large questions around the future of RJ and the Democratic Party.

Our second story: Congress hasn’t simply sold out women’s health; they’ve specifically sold out the health of low-income women. As RJ activists, we should be particularly attuned to intersections of economic justice and reproductive health, and to the ways in which the Stupak Amendment furthers the economic stratification of abortion access. (more…)

A Congressional staffer recently reprimanded me for suggesting that Democrats might be in the business of compromise despite their solid majority in the House. “Show me,” she demanded, “how have we compromised?” Well, for starters, Democrats have continuously turned their back on their largest voting block—women—by repeatedly holding out access to abortion as a sacrificial lamb. Case in point: the Stupak Amendment Dems offered last night to pave the way for passage of the House’s health care reform bill.

The Amendment, which passed 240-194, not only bars a public option plan from providing abortions, but prohibits individuals from using government subsidies to purchase a plan that provides abortions. Those familiar with current restrictions on federal funding for abortion might think this amendment just preserves the status quo. They’re wrong. Most available healthcare plans currently provide coverage for abortions. The Amendment has the potential to push such plans out of the market—or at least to unaffordable levels—by prohibiting their purchase with federal subsidies.

It seems paradoxical that a reform effort aimed at increasing access to affordable, quality health services could exclude access to comprehensive reproductive health care. It’s more than a little bittersweet that clearing the first hurdle in the race toward national healthcare reform has come at the expense of women’s health. It’s even harder to stomach that our nation’s pro-choice champions manufactured the deal.

Lauren R. S. Mendonsa