This blog is cross-posted from ChoiceUSA’s blog.
Hannah Geyer, George Washington University Law School

So lately I’ve noticed that a lot of people categorize reproductive rights as Not Real Rights. Reproductive rights aren’t like voting, or free speech, or the right to access public accommodations. Reproductive rights are special rights, according to some – including Above the Law’s (snarky lawyer blog whose commentariat aren’t super into social justice or, um… just not being a terrible person when commenting) Ami Cholia.

Law Students for Reproductive Justice (bias alert: I’m the President of GW Law’s chapter) recently released a study that revealed that out of the 177 responding law schools, only 32 of them offered a course in reproductive rights. ATL’s Cholia wrote a post asking if lawyers-in-training really need these classes:

“Academic classes rarely give one a true representation of how the concepts we study play out in real life (think back to your middle school sex-ed class for a minute). That is usually learned on the job. You are trained to ask the right questions and argue your point effectively — a rounded understanding of law, then, should prepare you to take on a reproductive case, regardless.

Should we interpret the dearth of repro-rights courses as representative of gender-imbalance at schools and within the profession at large? Again, I don’t think so. It’s not about man v. woman or even life v. abortion. It’s about rights. And as a trained lawyer, you are taught about those rights. Reproductive rights aren’t special rights, are they?”

Call me a crazed feminist, but it seems that the “special rights” question was asked sarcastically, implying that all of us humorless wenches complaining about a lack of reproductive rights courses are being hypocritical, since men and women are equal, aren’t they? Marginalizing reproductive rights as “special” rights or “women’s” rights misses the whole point. (more…)

Last month I had the pleasure of attending a breakfast with Linda Greenhouse and Reva Siegel hosted by Harvard’s LSRJ (the Boston LSRJs are all besties and its fantastic! I strongly recommend LSRJs in other cities become bffs with each other). It was a great event where Greenhouse and Siegel spent most of the time discussing their book, Before Roe v. Wade. The most poignant part of the discussion for me was when the authors/professors/superstars spoke about how the abortion issue was injected into political party platforms in the 1972 Presidential election. The gist of it is that in the ‘72 election Pat Buchanan, a strategist for Nixon, advised the Republican candidate to make abortion a central issue in his campaign as a way to attract Catholic and social conservative voters. Specifically, Buchanan recommended that Nixon portray Democratic candidate George McGovern as someone who favors “abortion, amnesty, and acid (the drug),” even though the candidates had SIMILAR VIEWS on abortion and neither had really spoken about those views during the campaign. Nixon employed the strategy, won the election, and a “pro-life position” became as embedded in the Republican platform as small government and lower taxes, and a “pro-choice position” became as embedded in the Democratic platform as social programs and gun control.

The point to take away from this moment in history is that abortion has not always been embedded in party platforms, and in fact it hasn’t been so for that long. I.e. there is NO inherent reason why Republicans should be pro-life, Democrats pro-choice, and more importantly that abortion should be a campaign issue at all. (more…)

For many RJ advocates, the Affordable Care Act was a mixed bag. On the one hand, it covers 95% of Americans by 2014, with all sorts of improved quality measures. On the other hand, the Nelson Amendment dealt a severe blow to advocates who felt that this was a real chance to provide comprehensive reproductive health services to women.

But the politics don’t end when the President signs a bill into law. Federal agencies, in this case the Department of Health and Human Services, exercise power in implementing legislation by issuing regulations. The issue confronting HHS now is whether regulations implementing Sec. 2713 of the Affordable Care Act (the Women’s Health Amendment) should include family planning and birth control in the definition of mandated “preventive care.” Advocates are fighting for and against a comprehensive definition, but the decision belongs to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Birth control is preventive care. (more…)

First, with the Stupak Amendment, and now, with Adventures in Bigotry, I’m continually in awe of what happens to the Constitution in the hands of Michigan representatives. It’s been an incredibly interesting week of discussion at the University of Michigan Law School. A Michigan Assistant Attorney General, Andrew Shirvell, has for months been stalking and harassing UofM’s openly gay student body president, Chris Armstrong, calling him, inter alia, a racist, elitist Nazi recruiter for the homosexual agenda. Mr. Shirvell has been barred from campus and, as of a couple days ago, the hearing for Mr. Armstrong request for a personal protection order against him has been delayed. This issue became national news over the past week, in major part due to CNN’s coverage and interviews with both Mr. Shirvell and legal analysts.

Likely in response to this controversy, Mr. Shirvell has taken a voluntary leave of absence, and it has been reported that he will face disciplinary action on his return. Why that is or what will happen is entirely unclear. Michigan’s Attorney General has been largely inconsistent when expressing his views on the matter, in the same breath defending and decrying Mr. Shirvell’s conduct, but appears to remain committed to not firing him (personally, I’m having an especially hard time reconciling the Attorney General’s apparent decision to take disciplinary action with his persistent defense of this conduct as protected). Michigan’s Governor has tweeted that, were she still the Attorney General, Mr. Shirvell “would have already been fired.” (more…)

Inspired by a little taste of civil disobedience this morning*, and thinking of bright new law students everywhere embarking on this grand adventure, I thought I would include a few thoughts about the law school experience in my inaugural blog. Four earnest observations I have made these past two years, in no particular order. These are truisms for me, though they may not be for you, and I am certainly not the first or last 3L with a top-four claim to the secrets of legal education. Nevertheless, I wish to articulate these tidbits in the hopes that any or all of you can enter the profession as yourself as opposed to a shell-shocked pre-fab known quantity.

Please note that I am not going to tell you how to “succeed” in law school. According to most articles I have read on that topic, I am a failure. So, here’s how I failed at law school. (more…)

No one disputes that it is risky to take a non-traditional career path, especially when pursuing a law degree.  When you add reproductive justice issues into the equation, with all of the false assumptions that come from outside of the movement, the path becomes that much more challenging.  In the closing plenary session of the LSRJ Leadership Institute this afternoon, Malika Saada Saar of the Rebecca Project for Human Rights boldly shared that going through law school on her alternative path challenged everything that she knew about herself.

As someone who never pictured herself in law school and finds herself continually bucking the recommended path for success on the road to a JD and beyond, it was reassuring for me to hear.  Even this incredibly successful, powerful and inspiring woman had doubts about herself while in school.  The truth is that the biggest favor a person who is passionate about human rights issues can do for herself is giver herself permission to trust in her ability to make decisions.  Law Review and firm work do not have to be included.  Or they can be.  Good grades can open doors but so can volunteer work and hands-on experience.  There are many options open to each of us and each of those options can play a significant role in the reproductive justice movement.  Once we get ourselves through the doors of the law school, we can feel comfortable that we have gotten over the main hurdle that demands we fit into a certain mold.  From there, the challenge becomes finding our purpose and our place and moving boldly forward. (more…)

On June 11, 2010 the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) and Law Students for Reproductive Justice (LSRJ) co-sponsored a reproductive law and policy training in Washington, D.C. Sixty people attended, representing 27 different law schools and 28 different organizations.

The event was a unique opportunity for attendees to tap into NWLC’s and LSRJ’s wealth of knowledge. Mariko Miki from LSRJ provided participants with a background of LSRJ and offered support for students interested in starting or reinvigorating a chapter at their law school. Judy Waxman, Vice President of Health and Reproductive Rights at NWLC, and Beth Sousa, Senior Counsel at NWLC, explained how health care reform affects women’s access to health care, particularly abortion. It was inspiring to hear about the benefits women can expect from health reform, and that despite some setbacks, no one has given up on keeping abortion coverage in health insurance benefit plans. (more…)

The first time I answered the question, “Nice to meet you. What do you do?” with the complete, whole truth I found it hard to breathe. I waited to see the faces change, the hand pull away. That was because, until that moment, when I first met people, I never revealed my full job description. To my relief, no one attacked me, judged me, or even looked at me strangely. I didn’t lie, but I definitely had perfected a watered down, vague answer, a safe answer, to that dreaded question. However this time, taking a deep breath, I declared proudly, “I work in women’s reproductive healthcare. I am a business manager for offices that provide reproductive health care and we specialize in abortion care.” Huge sigh of relief.

Why I couldn’t just say this from the beginning was something that I had reflected on constantly since my job had transformed into a career. I was certainly not embarrassed about what I had chosen to do every day for a living. In fact, in direct contrast, I was (and am) proud to put my values in action working in a field about which I care deeply and for a cause I believe in, heart and soul. However, my beliefs regarding women’s healthcare did not form based on the field I work in, but rather from where I grew up.

(more…)

Last week, University of San Diego LSRJ lured over 120 people to our last event of the semester with a sultry title, Chipotle, and a raffle for chocolate body paint, but the attendees stayed for a substantive conversation about the evolution and limitations of the constitutional “right to privacy.”

The split between the 5^th and 11^th Circuits over Lawrence v. Texas’ application to the sale and promotion of sex toys spawned “My Body, My Bedroom.”  Whereas the 11^th Circuit ruled in Williams v. Attorney General of Alabama, 378 F.3d 1232 (5th Cir. 2004), that Lawrence does not protect the sale of sex toys, the 5^th Circuit examined the question in Reliable Consultants, Inc. v. Earle, 517 F.3d 738 (11th Cir. 2008), and came to the opposite conclusion.

(more…)

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…)