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

The Utah Senate has passed SB60, a bill that would force health care providers to collect information from women seeking abortions on their ethnicity, the stage of pregnancy, and the reason given for the procedure. While the federal government already provides this data, this bill is a preventative measure to ensure that even if federal government changes its approach, Utah will still have access to this information. This is troubling because the sponsor of the bill, Senator Margaret Dayton, has previously expressed interest in challenging race-selective abortions as well as targeting specific cultural preferences that supposedly give rise to sex-selective abortions. The information sought to be gathered by SB60 sounds like it could be a stepping stone to a number of racially charged campaigns that disguise their anti-abortion agenda with a veneer of concern about women and people of color. This is a strategy that has been attempted before, with billboards accusing black women who seek abortions of committing genocide. This bill also sounds like a precursor to so-called “Prenatal Non-Discrimination Act” or PRENDA, which would have required health care providers to report women they suspected of seeking an abortion for reasons based on the fetus’ gender or race. PRENDA purported to be pro-women but was actually a way to both scrutinize and stereotype women based on race and create arbitrary obstacles to abortion access.  PRENDA failed in the House of Representatives last May.

Senator Dayton’s assumptions about the makeup of society and people’s ability to function within it suggests that she is not aware of the effects of being denied reproductive choice. It is her stated belief that the “traditional family is the fundamental unit of our society” is blind to the fact that “traditional families” account for only 7% of the US population. It is her belief that “personal initiative is better than government programs,” when unplanned pregnancy perpetuates the cycle of poverty. Dayton’s focus on personal initiative sounds like another way of saying that she would not be in favor of investing in programs targeting poverty, hunger, and poor health outcomes that would help women considering abortions post-pregnancy. Legislators who ignore the reality of family structures and what it takes to sustain them can hardly be presumed to be using this type of information to the best interest of women.

Josie Sustaire, Resident Blogger (’14, University of Oregon School of Law)

Suppose a woman chooses to have a child.  Suppose that she elects also to raise the child after it’s born.  You may be thinking, “Great.  Good for her.”  But suppose that the woman also happens to be addicted to drugs.  Are you still excited for her?  Is she any less suitable to invoke her rights?  What should be done?  Legislators in Alabama have answered these questions by prosecuting women who expose their children to drugs while pregnant.  The Alabama statute, Ala.Code 1975 § 26-15-3.2, was originally put on the books to protect children from exposure to meth labs.  However, the law has been expanded through litigation to encompass fetal exposure to drugs in utero, essentially offering legislator’s a backhanded way of circumventing a woman’s rights.

“Laws concerning a pregnant woman’s treatment of her fetus are not without precedent,” Ada Calhoun points out in her New York Times article on the subject.  “Since abortion was legalized in 1973,” she says, “hundreds of women across the country have been arrested for harming their fetuses, with charges ranging from child endangerment to first-degree murder.  Emma Ketteringham, the director of legal advocacy at the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, a New York-based reproductive-justice group, predicts a grim future if laws like Alabama’s stay on the books.  “Everyone talks about the personhood of the fetus,” she remarks, “but what’s really at stake is the personhood of women.  It starts with the use of an illegal drug, but what happens as a consequence of that precedent is that everything a woman does while she’s pregnant becomes subject to state regulation.”

And, as if to add insult to injury, medical research has shown that quitting cold turkey while pregnant can be fatal to the fetus.  So, that same hypothetical pregnant woman who abuses drugs, if she has access to adequate medical care, may be told by a medical professional that she should not quit but rather should maintain acceptable levels to avoid miscarriage.  Given the research, maintaining low levels of the drugs in order to save the fetus seems much safer.  BUT if the state that the woman lives in has a law like Alabama, she will still face criminal charges once the baby is born and traces of drugs are found in the baby’s system.

There must be something we can do about this.  We must find a way to reconcile the rights of women with the interests of the state in ensuring the health and safety of infants.  Why does a woman’s rights have to be sacrificed?  How can Alabama legislators believe that two wrongs can make a right?  What we can be sure of is that Alabama has no plans of backing off.  Over 60 women have been incarcerated for child endangerment and the legislature has submitted proposed amendments to the statute to explicitly apply to in utero exposure.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I love the babies.  I want what is best for them.  But how can locking their mother up for 10 years (mandatory sentence in Alabama is 10 years to life) because she is a drug user be the best option?  Sure she should not have used drugs while pregnant, but hindsight’s 20-20 and what’s done is done.  What can we offer her moving forward?  Drug treatment options seem like a much more beneficial option.  I would also encourage changing regulation of methadone clinics due to the risk of methadone exposure to fetuses.  There may not be an easy solution, but we certainly can’t go on like this.

Note:  The Guttmacher Institute has a state policy pdf that states “No state specifically criminalizes drug use during pregnancy,” and I have submitted a request for clarification and am currently awaiting their response.

This article was published by The Center for American Progress.  

Elizabeth Chen is a Policy Analyst for the Women’s Health and Rights Program at the Center for American Progress and a Law Students for Reproductive Justice law fellow.

The Family and Medical Leave Act was signed into law 20 years ago today and was a great first step toward supporting workers and workplace fairness. The law ensures that employees can receive 12 weeks of unpaid job-protected leave to recover from a serious medical condition, provide care for a seriously ill family member, or care for a new child. Workplace leave, however, is not just an employment issue—it is also a matter of reproductive justice.

Reproductive justice stands at the intersection of traditional reproductive rights concerns, such as the decision whether to become a parent, and social justice issues. In addition, it centers on the reproductive health needs of the most marginalized populations, including women of color, low-income individuals, and individuals with disabilities, among others. In our 2006 report,“More than a Choice: A Progressive Vision for Reproductive Health and Rights,” we set forth four cornerstones essential to a progressive reproductive health, rights, and justice agenda, including policies that support the ability to become a parent and to parent with dignity—meaning being able to financially, emotionally, and physically support a child’s basic needs—and the ability to have healthy and safe families and relationships.

Workplace leave is crucial for all people, but especially for low-income individuals seeking to become parents and have healthy families—a right to which we are all entitled. Historically, though, some parenting has been privileged at the expense of others, and not everyone has been able to exercise this right.

Laws and social movements, for example, encouraged white women to stay out of the workforce in order to provide full-time care for their children, while driving women of color—especially black women—into paid work, thus preventing them from being full-time stay-at-home caregivers to their children. Harvard Law Dean Martha Minow has documented how welfare policy for mothers in the late 19th century provided income support for them to stay at home. When access to such income support became increasingly available to black women during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, however, the rhetoric surrounding welfare became more negative. University of Pennsylvania Law Professor Dorothy Roberts explainsthat, “The central message of welfare reform is that recipient mothers are deviant for staying home and would better serve their children by finding jobs.”

To this day, programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, which provides income support for families living in poverty, require work in the formal economy—or training for it—driving low-income parents into the workforce. Unpaid work within the home, including caring for families, does not satisfy the program’s requirements. This is not merely a historical remnant of former cultural biases—as recently as the 2012 presidential election, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) claimed that he would require mothers receiving income support to either work outside the home or lose the support.

Furthermore, parenting itself is highly gendered in law and society, making it difficult for men to assume caregiving roles. Sex-role stereotypes, often historically codified in law, cast white women as caregivers and white men as breadwinners. Masculinity throughout the 20th century was defined by this stereotypical family wage system, even though working-class men and men of color were largely excluded from that system.

The gendered breadwinner-caregiver model has become increasingly destabilized over time. In fact, as we noted in our issue brief, “The New Breadwinners: 2010 Update,” in 2010 women were either primary breadwinners or co-breadwinners in nearly two-thirds of American families with children. Yet gendered caregiver bias persists and can result in employment discriminationagainst men when they request leave to care for their children.

Given the devaluation of caregiving, while also recognizing that most parents—especially low-income ones—must work, how can we support working parents as both workers and caregivers? The Family and Medical Leave Act was a step in the right direction: By protecting the jobs of workers caring for a new child, the law reflects policymakers’ recognition that caretaking after birth or adoption of a child is essential, and that workers should have the flexibility to take time off to do so.

The law also furthers equality and disrupts sex-role stereotypes by applying equally to both men and women. Under the law, men and women alike have the opportunity to take time off to care for family members—and the percentage of men taking leave for caregiving purposes hasincreased steadily over time. Even former Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist, initially anopponent of women’s equality under the law, acknowledged the crucial work that the law does to “attack the formerly state-sanctioned stereotype that only women are responsible for family caregiving.”

Workplace policies such as the Family and Medical Leave Act give workers the opportunity to care for their families with dignity by permitting them to continue to work and also to spend crucial time bonding with their new children. Under the law, workers can also take time off to care for a seriously ill family member, including a child, expanding the ability for parents to meet the needs of their children.

Unfortunately, the Family and Medical Leave Act doesn’t go far enough. As we noted in our 2009 issue brief, “Labor Pains: Improving Employment and Income Security for Pregnant Women and New Mothers,” the law only covers a subset of workers.  According to new statistics released by the Department of Labor, more than 60 percent of workers do not qualify for the protections of the law because they or their employers do not meet one or more requirements for leave. Moreover, because the leave is unpaid, almost 50 percent of workers report not being financially able to take the leave. Guaranteed leave does not enhance the ability for individuals to parent with dignity if they do not qualify for it or cannot afford to take it.

Workplace leave is crucial for people with children to be able to parent with dignity and have healthy families. The ability to care for children when they are born or adopted, or when they fall ill is essential to a holistic and comprehensive vision of reproductive health, rights, and justice. The Family and Medical Leave Act was a good beginning, but we must continue to fight until all Americans have the ability to care for their children without jeopardizing their job or their income.

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.

Ash Moore, Resident Blogger (’14, University of Oklahoma College of Law)

It is the 40^th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. I’m in law school so you may think you’re about to be bombarded with legalese and a disconnected opinion. But I have a different and important perspective – a personal one.

When I was a teenager, I was raped. Gang raped. And as cliche and trite as it has become, I was ashamed and felt like it was my fault. So, despite my better judgment, the first thing I did was take a hot shower. I washed away all evidence of the crime even though I knew exactly what I was doing. After the shower, I went in to denial. I tried to pretend like it didn’t happen. I didn’t get tested for STDs and I didn’t do anything about a potential pregnancy.

Then, in a couple of months when I started throwing up and feeling like I was getting fatter, reality set in with a vengeance and brought sheer terror with it. I didn’t know anything about pregnancy except how it came about and I knew it was a possibility.

At that point, I was more determined not to tell anyone than I was before. What if they didn’t believe me? Or what if they did and they were furious I did everything I wasn’t supposed to do? Either way, what was I going to do if I was really pregnant? I knew abortion was an option, but I didn’t want to kill something growing inside me.

I could give a baby up for adoption, but my life would be permanently changed and maybe ruined in the meantime. I didn’t know if that option was selfish, but I didn’t make a mistake, this was forced on me. Couldn’t I put myself first for a second?

I could keep the baby. But I truly believed that wouldn’t be the best thing for the baby. I wouldn’t be able to give it the kind of life it deserved. I would struggle, not have money, and be a young parent (with or without help) which is hard on the people I knew who had young parents.

Whether you think it was right or wrong, abortion was a huge part of the decision process. And the longer I thought about it, the more it seemed like the most rational and right choice. I’m deeply religious and that caused a huge problem and huge internal struggle. Would God understand? Would He approve? Would I be condemned? I knew no matter what decision I made, I would never be the same again.

Most people agree that abortion should be available for rape victims. So I wasn’t in the same position as the women struggling with restricted rights today. But what was the same was the excruciating decision process and fear. What the pregnancy test result was and what I ultimately decided are irrelevant.

What is relevant was that I had a tough decision to make and no matter what I decided, more options made the tortuous experience a little easier. It made me feel like others had struggled and came to the same decision I did; no matter what I chose, I knew I would never blame or fault anyone for making a different one in that impossible situation.

No matter how someone gets to the point where they need to make a decision regarding a pregnancy (through rape, mistake, health or money problems, or other things I may not be able to think about right now), I believe all the choices I had should be available to every other woman (and more if we can find them).

I think access to all the choices should be easy because the decision making process is hard enough. I think most women probably walk in to a doctor’s office or adoption agency after as much thought, pain, and tears as I went through. Any obstacles to make these personal decisions harder are cruel and unusual punishment.

If abortion is the ultimate decision, I believe no doctor or spectator has a better idea of the heartbeat about to stop than the woman who has to live with the decision. As you can see, abortion isn’t my story. But it’s an important part of it. And it’s an important part of society. No matter what you would choose, imagine, as I did, the process without one or more of the choices.  Then look me in the eye and tell me you want to do that to another living, breathing, caring, concerned person who is only trying to think about the best decision she can make for herself and her family. It should never be harder than it was for me. Or you. If you know the feeling.

Josie Sustaire, Resident Blogger (’14, University of Oregon School of Law)

Ladies and Gentlemen, we did it.  We spoke up and spoke out.  We debated, made phone calls, sent emails, posted endlessly on Facebook, tweeted, laughed and cried, then laughed again.  We followed our hearts and we stood up for the rights of others.  We voted.  On behalf of my vagina and the millions of vaginas across these United States, I say thank you.

As I watched the news over the past week, I was overwhelmed with a sense of relief and accomplishment.  This is what I saw (thanks to Planned Parenthood for the headlines):

Oregon congressional candidate Art Robinson said the government should force a rape survivor to continue an unwanted pregnancy, by compensating her “very generously…for this burden.”  He LOST to women’s health champion Peter DeFazio!

Illinois Congressman Joe Walsh said there should be no abortion exception for the life of the mother, because “with modern technology and science, you can’t find one instance” in which a woman would actually die.  He was FIRED!

Florida Congressman Allen West said, “Planned Parenthood women…have been neutering American men.”  He just got FIRED in his bid for re-election!

Washington congressional candidate John Koster said “the rape thing” does not excuse abortions, because “crime has consequences.”  He just LOST.

Richard Mourdock said pregnancy from rape is “something God intended.”  He just LOST his bid for an Indiana Senate seat.

Missouri Congressman Todd Akin said women can’t get pregnant from “legitimate rape.” He just got FIRED in his bid for a Senate seat!

This election became something this year that past elections have never been for me:  personal.  I cannot recall an election year that meant more to me.  Perhaps it was the fact that I am in my second year of law school in an environment conducive towards political awareness and, at least in Oregon, progressive legislation and politicians.

Or perhaps it was the fact that I am now the Co-Director of the University of Oregon’s LSRJ chapter, a title that I feel is a testament to my unwavering support of the pursuit of reproductive justice.  It was these reasons that motivated me to share my views with my family, friends, classmates, and even strangers at an airport (true story).  But one reason above all these inspired me the most.  This year my kids asked me, “Who are you voting for?”  I don’t recall ever asking my parents whom they voted for (it usually wasn’t a mystery) and so I was a bit shocked to hear it from my kids’ mouths.  I wasn’t sure whether they would understand and I considered changing the subject…and then thought better.  “I’m voting for President Obama,” I said assuredly, “and this is why…”  I proceeded to tell my ten-year-old daughter and eight-year-old son exactly why I was voting for President Obama.  It was an engaging discussion, full of questions and comments.  It made me hopeful for the future and to many more meaningful discussions to come.

So, here’s to the voters, to the ladies and gents, and kids too!  We can rest easy tonight knowing that our lady parts or the lady parts of ladies we love are much safer.

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

A week or so ago, my classmates and I were arguing one of the most pressing questions of our nostalgia-obsessed generation: What is ultimate high school movie – Clueless or Mean Girls? (Answer: Neither, it’s obviously Heathers.) Amid the heady discussion and subsequent teen movie marathon planning, I started thinking about how high school movies have portrayed teen sexuality, contraception, and pregnancy over the years. In so many of the teen movies I grew up watching, sex was something that characters are obsessed with and defined by, and pregnancy is the ultimate horror. But is this moralizing cast on teen movies a modern thing? Maybe so.

One of my favorite teen movies is the cult classic, Fast Times at Ridgemont High (FTaRH). For a film that came out in 1982 – smack dab between two landslide election wins for Reagan – it’s shockingly open-minded. One of the main characters, Stacy, is a 15 year old freshman. She has sex for the first time with a 26 year old man and then initiates an encounter with a classmate, Mike Damone, from which she gets pregnant. She decides to get an abortion and tells Damone that he owes her half of the fee and a ride to the clinic. When Damone turns out to be a flake, Stacy’s brother deduces what has happened. He picks her up from the clinic, agrees to keep it a secret from their parents, and takes her out for lunch. Her best friend get revenge by vandalizing Damone’s car and locker in a classic act of high school public humiliation. Stacy, rather than being ostracized or shamed, is shown as being supported by her social circle and loved ones. It is Damone who is ridiculed for shirking his responsibilities, not Stacy for being sexually active. Stacy shows no signs of trauma and the abortion is never brought up again. Instead her narrative becomes one of her blossoming romance with Rat, a boy who has long harbored a crush on her. Rat angrily brushes aside Damone’s veiled insult that Stacy is “a very aggressive girl” (undertones of slut-shaming fully in force). Stacy continues to be assertive by giving Rat a picture of herself with her phone number on it and kissing him. Her reputation, as well as her confidence in herself and her sexuality is unshaken and unpunished.

I can only imagine the outcry such a story line would cause now. It’s a testament to how much we’ve gone backwards to imagine the complaints that would hound FTaRH for giving teens license to have wild, unprotected sex because the movies told them there’d be no penalties! The climate we live in today even mistakenly accused Juno, a movie in which the young woman chooses adoption rather than abortion, of glamorizing teen sex without consequences. In reality, teen pregnancy and teen moms face a great deal of stigma that is racially charged and makes it difficult to continue their education.

Turning to a classic of the aughts, Mean Girls is a film that has people endlessly quoting and referencing it eight years later. It was written by Tina Fey who promisingly said last week, “If I have to listen to one more gray-faced man with a two-dollar haircut explain to me what rape is, I’m going lose my mind.” And Mean Girls does have some golden reproductive justice moments. For example, it makes fun of a health curriculum that tells students that they’ll die if they have sex (taught by a teacher later revealed to be in a relationship with an underage student no less). And yet it leaves some things to be desired. When arch-Mean Girl Regina is in her bedroom with her boyfriend, her mother pops in and asks, “You guys need anything? Some snacks? A condom? Let me know!” It’s part of a larger characterization of Regina’s cold personality resulting from a dysfunctional family in which her mother sets no boundaries because she wants to be a “cool mom.” But is it really being a bad mother to make sure your daughter is equipped to deal with her sexual decisions rather than trying to control her sexuality? Not according to the way many families treat teen sexuality in the Netherlands. Apparently acknowledging that teens have sex, having open communication about contraceptives, and allowing sleepovers actually encourages trust and responsibility rather than the opposite.

Even if Hollywood is unlikely to portray teen sexuality in this way anytime soon (because of both conservative backlash and the lack of narrative drama), hopefully the actual experiences of American teenagers can begin to approach it.

Rosie Wang (’14, Columbia Law School)

My parents have been joking for 15 years that when I have children, they’ll move close by so they can help babysit them and tutor them in math. This scenario has always absolutely horrified me because (1) learning the times table at age 4 was an experience I wouldn’t wish on anyone and (2) who said I wanted kids? Its a matter I’m ambivalent on, but start feeling actively resistant towards on principle, once people knowingly say that I’ll change my mind and or rehash the tropes of parenthood being the noblest calling. This may have contributed to me amusing myself as a young adolescent by reading “childfree” livejournal groups that served as forums for people to discuss the stigma they felt from not wanting to have children. Specifically, there was a childfree group that I read out of interest in some of the feminist, pro-choice ideas, and a childfree “hardcore” group I read out of a morbid fascination with people who had built up so much resentment that they called parents “moos” or “breeders.”

This movement, more extreme parts included, is still alive and well. And looking at it from a reproductive justice angle is fascinating. Believe it or not, it is possible for reproductive justice advocates who work for healthy mothers and infants and for who say they actively dislike children and mothers to find common ground. For instance, some women who do not have children feel taken advantage of by the workplace accommodations given to women with children. From a different point of view though, you could say both groups of people are on the same side. Both women with and without children want their choices to parent or not to parent respected. Rather than developing antagonistic feelings, the answer may be better found in working together to develop workplaces that do not ask women without children to “pick up the slack,” but instead hire more employees so that no one has to disproportionately sacrifice their life outside of work.

On another workplace angle, as recently as 1991, courts have reviewed cases in which employers have banned fertile women from job duties that may cause birth defects with both an assumption that their female employees would all have children and an assumption that they knew what was best for these women. The posts I used to find the most interesting were by people who had never had children chronicling the frustrating experience of being denied tubal ligations by doctors who were sure they would regret it. Though the reproductive justice movement was founded by women of color, who have historically experienced forced sterilization, it makes perfect sense that it also champions the rights of the “childfree” to be voluntarily sterilized. The recurring theme is a familiar one from legislative battles surrounding abortion and contraception: Those with power arising from political clout, a professional degree, or employment position are trying to control how those with less power how to live their reproductive lives. And though the ability to choose is usually associated with the right to time and space having children – it is just as much of a reproductive right to choose to never have children.

JoAnna Smith, Emory University

During the first day at the Leadership Institute, we discussed how the reproductive justice model differs from other frameworks for reproductive rights or social justice.

It made me think back to when I was working as a labor doula before law school.  A labor doula is a trained and experienced professional who provides continuous physical, emotional and informational support to a woman before, during and just after birth.  A doula learns that she is there to help the woman have a safe and satisfying childbirth as the woman defines it. It is not the role of the doula to discourage the laboring woman from her choices, nor to project their own values and goals onto her.

As a doula, I was required to listen more than I talked.  I learned to encourage women to ask questions and get information rather than doing it for her.  I learned that I couldn’t possibly understand all the circumstance of another woman’s life that drive her to make the decisions she does, but that I should do everything in my power to hear her and help her achieve those choices.  I learned to work behind the scenes, providing valuable skills and resources when needed, but never taking the spotlight away from those who really mattered: the woman, her family, and supporters.  Outside of the birthing room, I advocated for changes in a complex system of institutions, laws, and circumstances that make it difficult for women to have the birth they knew was best for them.

What I heard during the RJ 101 session made me think hard about the role of an RJ lawyer.  In law school we learn how to be the interpreter of the law and the one who gives advice.  We are taught to stand up in front and speak confidently.  We are taught to be, or at least act like, the experts our education prepares us to be.

But the reproductive justice framework asks us to focus on the intersections of race, class, sex, age, sexual orientation, gender expression, immigration status, and ability and how they impact access, agency, and autonomy in shaping one’s reproductive destiny.   It shifts our role from achieving a right or winning a case for someone to one that requires us to listen and to act only once we attempt to understand those we serve.  It asks us to work with communities as allies, strategists, and advisors to overcome the complex systems, laws, and circumstances that make it difficult for people to have the reproductive destiny they know is best for them.

We must be doulas in the reproductive justice movement.

I am incredibly honored to be at the L I with so many soon-to-be lawyers who will continue to doula this movement, and those it affects, forward with compassion, grace, and integrity.