Call it beginner’s luck: my first year in law school and the first-ever Law Students for Reproductive Justice South Regional conference just so happen to coincide, and for one fruitful day, my activist, academic, and professional worlds were temporarily united. The conference started with presentations by two women near and dear to my RJ-heart: Heidi Williamson of Sistersong and Tonya Williams of SPARK Reproductive Justice Now.
Anyone wondering about whether the RJ movement is alive and kicking in the south had their fears alleviated by the time these remarkable women finished speaking. Both Ms. Williamson and Dr. Williams did a fantastic job of explaining the concept of reproductive justice, and they did an even better job of explaining the significance the term has in the South, where reproductive justice work faces particular challenges. (more…)
Last weekend I went to the posh city of Atlanta, GA and was greeted by the wonderful ladies of Georgia State University College of Law’s LSRJ chapter. I want send a special thank you to my host Sarah Scott…she WAS AWESOME!!!
The South Regional Conference discussed issues about human trafficking, Reproductive Justice Asylum cases and LGBT issues within Immigration Law.
I thank you for the wonderful panel of speakers from SisterSong, Alia El Sawi, Dazon Dixon Diallo, our very own Jill Adams just to name a few. These ladies brought knowledge and showed commitment to the LSRJ struggle.
I am truly excited about the work that needs to be done in the southern region! It is most comforting to know that there are committed men and women gaining a legal education and equipping ourselves with tools to adequately combat these issues.
Law school as we all know is hard, but it’s encouraging to know we share a common goal. I wish everyone a safe spring break and thank you for taking the time out to read this blog.
On January 1, 2010, I began a three-year service on the Board of Directors of Planned Parenthood of San Diego and RiversideCounties. Last week, I experienced my first event as an official board member by attending the President’s Council Speaker Series at one of our local affiliates. I was one of the first to arrive, and since I am new to the board, I only knew a handful of people. However, I eventually found myself speaking with Dawn and Connie, two members of the community who feel incredibly committed to serving Planned Parenthood and its mission. They recounted how they worked as volunteers for Planned Parenthood when they were in college in the 70’s and now that they are retired, they are feeling an urge to volunteer again. These women were lovely to speak with; they were funny, intelligent, and passionate. And then Dawn said, “Now tell me, Jenn. Why are you the youngest person in this room? Why aren’t more people your age here?” I turned around and noticed that the reception area had filled with more than a hundred people in the time I had spent getting to know my new acquaintances . . . and they were right. Aside from the Planned Parenthood staff, I was the youngest guest in attendance—it was easy to tell that everyone else was from a completely different generation. And then it really hit me—why am I the only 20-something in this room? Why aren’t my peers more represented?Why aren’t more law students here? Aren’t law students interested in protecting “people’s rights”?
Law students are busy.* There’s no denying that. And it can be difficult to motivate students to attend an event where there may not be many lawyers present. But women (and men) worked hard to gain the rights my generation often takes for granted. We forget that there was a time when our mothers and grandmothers couldn’t walk into their nearest health clinic and walk out with a year supply of birth control, no questions asked. Many of us may enjoy certain rights today, but that doesn’t mean those rights aren’t limited for many people out there or can be taken away from the rest of us. There are people out there actively opposing us and trying to limit our rights . . . especially our right to control our reproductive freedom. I shouldn’t be the only 20-something in a room full of reproductive rights advocates and supporters.I urge those of you who want to get more involved but haven’t been able to find the time, to make the time.
*I realize that people may read this who are not law students.However, this is the lens I am applying since I am a law student, surrounded on a daily basis by other law students.
I was delighted to attend the Northeast Regional LSRJ Conference at New York Law School on February 13, 2010. Leigh Campbell and Courtney Patterson did an excellent job organizing.The theme was “The New War on Reproductive Justice: The Changing Tactics of the Anti-Choice Movement.”The following are the primary pieces of information I took away from each informative panel.
Jordan Goldberg from the Center for Reproductive Rights and Alexa Kolbi-Molinas from the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project discussed the importance of acting on a state and local level, rather than focusing only on Supreme Court decisions. The state representatives are much more likely to listen to individual members of their constituencies, meaning that time spent contacting legislators is certainly not wasted.Currently, there is legislation in many states throughout the country aimed at redefining life and personhood.If this legislation is passed it could effectively outlaw abortion, many forms of contraception and emergency contraception in that state. Additionally, it would open the doors to criminal charges on behalf of the fetus.Needless to say, the implications are staggering and those developments are worth following.
Sabrina Shulman, the Political Director at NARAL Pro-Choice New York, talked about the latest strategies of the anti-choice movement.Ms. Shulman described the movement as being an “under-the-radar campaign of fear and intimidation.”The most startling aspect to me (more…)
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.
While most legal symposia consist of academics speaking at length about their current research intended for publication in an upcoming journal symposium issue, the NYU Review of Law & Social Change is seeking to do something different in its February 12th symposium, From Page to Practice: Broadening the Lens for Sexual & Reproductive Rights. As part of the Page to Practice model, we are integrating practitioner voices into the discussion. Through the conversations that develop, the symposium planners hope to bring an on-the-ground critical lens to academic work and encourage collaborations around strategy that extend beyond traditional silos.
As part of this collaborative model, we are posting some of the academic presenters’ abstracts here. Given that this is a one-day symposium, the organizers hope to begin the conversations early through comments and ideas posted here on RepoRepro and on the Reproductive Rights Prof blog.
For more information about the symposium, please see the invitation below: (more…)
I had the pleasure of attending Law Students for Reproductive Justice’s West Regional Conference last Sunday. Among the amazing speakers, was Apsen Baker, of Exhale. Just saying the org.’s name puts me at ease. Knowing that Exhale provides women the ability voice to their experiences with abortion, free from judgment or the risk of damage to personal relationships, gives me great comfort.
At the end of Aspen’s presentation, she posed a question to our group, “What do you think is the role of law students and the legal community in creating a more supportive and respectful social climate around abortion?” Support and respect are not central tenants of a profession that is inherently adversarial, so I found this question challenging.(more…)
The beginning of the new year is a time for reflection, optimism, and goal-setting. In this spirit, Harvard Law Students for Reproductive Justice presents its New Year’s resolutions, and we encourage your chapter to create its own.
For this semester:
1. Meet with administrators from Harvard’s health service to see if we can find out the motivations behind the opt-out policy.
— Harvard allows anti-choice students to receive a refund of the portion of their health insurance fee which funds abortion. This “refund” has amounted to roughly $1 per student, and there are student organizations which hold drives to encourage people to opt-out. In the past, HLSRJ has held response drives, collecting $1 from pro-choice students and donating the proceeds to worthy organizations. This year, we split our donation between Planned Parenthood and a local abortion fund. However, several of our board members this year would like to find out why Harvard allows students to opt-out, and how exactly the process works, in hopes of creating awareness and possibly getting this policy changed.
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…)
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…)
RepoRepro is the blog of Law Students for Reproductive Justice. All opinions expressed are those of the author herself, and are not representative of the views of the organization. LSRJ takes no position on political candidates or parties. Questions? email reporepro@lsrj.org