I attended today’s LSOC Caucus, and I must say I was impressed by the quality of the comments that came from the participants, as well as the quality of the leadership provided by LSRJ Intern Jeryl Hayes.  It all started with an e-mail invitation to attend the Caucus during our lunch hour on Saturday.  When I got there, I instantly felt that familiar feeling of comfort when all of a sudden, I was no longer the only brown person in the immediate vicinity.  To my left and to my right, behind me and in front of me, I saw a diverse group of advocates who had one definite thing in common: our passion for reproductive justice.

It was a beautiful thing!  We talked about racial tensions on our campuses and the dearth of minority lawyers in the RJ field.  We talked about our personal ambitions as future attorneys and what kind of pressures we faced from our respective communities to do something outside of public interest law.  Participants also touched on issues I had not thought of before – for example, what a strong reproductive justice movement would look like in the South and how law students of color and LGBTQ law students could contribute to it.  The conversation was fascinating, and above all, I think it was so important to create a time and space to address a topic that rarely gets airtime:  the intersection of race and gender that lies at the heart of reproductive justice.

There is much more to explore as we return to our campuses and try to make intersectionality a bigger part of our LSRJ chapter advocacy.  But I believe the seeds have been planted for a keen awareness about how our identities impact what we say and how our words are heard by others.  As a Latina law student, I appreciated the opportunity to reflect on how my identity brings a different perspective to conversations about reproductive justice on campus, at my internships, and in the lives of people I talk to everyday.

Lucy Panza

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…)

On Sunday, Americans will unite in front of television screens across the county, but two things will divide them: team affiliation and abortion. Yes, abortion will be part of this year’s Super Bowl festivities because Focus on the Family, the uber-conservative “family values” group, has purchased an advertising slot allegedly featuring quarterback Tim Tebow’s mom discussing her decision not to terminate her pregnancy despite her doctor’s recommendation. The message being: “If I’d had an abortion, my son never would have won the Heisman.”

Although Americans are used to taking sides on Super Bowl Sunday, how will they react when they’re asked to take sides on one of our nation’s deepest cultural divides during the Big Game? Some national women’s and reproductive rights organizations, including LSRJ, have already reacted–they’re petitioning CBS to pull the ad. This seems like a reflexive, even if justified, reaction. Though I haven’t seen the ad, I’m relatively certain that if it crossed my screen on Sunday, my TV and I would have it out–as we often do when I’m blindsided by bigotry and intolerance wrapped up in American flags, bald eagles, and yes, football uniforms. However, reproductive justice organizations aren’t being blindsided by the ad, so we have the time to formulate a well-reasoned, articulate response. (more…)

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…)

Lawyers love to talk, so when you bring a group of lawyers-in-training together, there’s little need for conversation starters. Not surprisingly, I found this to be the case at this weekend’s Law Students for Reproductive Justice second annual Leadership Institute. What I did find surprising, but maybe shouldn’t have, was the energy, passion and insight of the conversations. While we had opportunities to engage in formal caucuses around issues facing new chapters, Law Students of Color, and ideologically conservative campuses, I witnessed some of the most inspiring conversations taking place in between the structured events and in whispers, mummers, and note passing during them. For many of us, the conversations spilled over into dinner and followed us into our hotel rooms. At the end of the weekend, I found myself giving a hurried hug to a woman I had met less than 48 hours prior as the subway doors closed mid-sentence on our conversation—which had started on a bus four hours earlier—about fostering and sustaining campus diversity. With the collective experiences of 80 law students advocating for reproductive justice across the country at our finger tips, I would have liked to see someone try to shut us up. 

But as we return to our respective campuses, people will try to shut us up, or at least temper our enthusiasm either because they disagree with the goals and values of the reproductive justice movement, or because they simply don’t see a place for reproductive justice in legal institutions or professions. While we received bags, literally, of activism tools this weekend, the greatest take-home of the weekend is the network of law students and professionals upon whom we can now call for strength and support whenever we confront the jungle gym of obstacles that can stand in the way of successful campus activism and reproductive justice advocacy.

(more…)

I was tuning out by tuning in to Ani DiFranco’s “God’s Country,” when it happened. I was traipsing along Chestnut Street en route to the Leadership Institute this morning, when I came face to face with an oversized banner, tacked to the side of a church, which quoted from Pearl S. Buck. “Growth itself contains the germ of happiness.”

Ah, my own little burning bush! “Dudette,” said the oversized banner, tacked to the side of a church. “Expand your horizons. Grow yourself!”

Indeed this weekend has been all about expanding horizons, affecting the way we think about campus organizing.

Through countless discussions with similarly-situated LSRJers and a series of fabulous presentations about successful LSRJ events, I’ve decided it’s important to meet in the middle sometimes. And I’ve decided it’s also really important to rock the metaphorical boat. I’m pumped about planning fall activities and feeling all kinds of support from this amazing network of people who are seriously a wealth of good ideas. We can’t stop at talking. Repro justice demands more and better. It doesn’t just happen.

- Jonelle Kusminsky

Being surrounded by a group of smart, driven, and passionate law students brought together by their common desire to advance the values of reproductive justice is like waking up on a winter morning wrapped in your down comforter—you never want to leave.  This is how I felt Saturday when I joined more than 80 law students from 50 law schools around the country to kick off the second annual Law Students for Reproductive Justice Leadership Institute. Our day was filled with activities and learning opportunities that ranged from brainstorming strategies for building sustainable campus chapters to learning the basics of a successful amicus brief to strengthening our abilities to identify strategic partnerships and work in coalition. These sessions and activities were led by new and seasoned reproductive justice activists including Tina Sinha, an intern at the LSRJ national office and rising 2L at UC Berkley School of Law, Jill Morrison, Senior Counsel at the National Women’s Law Center, and Cynthia Soohoo Director of the U.S. Legal Program at the Center for Reproductive Rights.

I felt a buoyant giddiness as I caucused with my peers about the challenges and success stories of new campus chapters—finally a group of people who understand me, who share my values and who want to support my efforts to advance reproductive justice on my campus and in my community. But as much as I would like to stay enveloped in this moment of warmth and comfort, I can’t ignore the fact that reproductive justice is anything but comfortable.

Being imprisoned and shackled during labor is not comfortable; finding a sanitary place to express breast milk between your Property and Torts classes is not comfortable; and viewing the fetus you’re about to abort on an ultrasound machine is anything but comfortable. But these are the realities we must confront, engage, and challenge as law students—and soon to be lawyers—committed to ensuring that all people and communities have access to the information, resources, and support they need to exercise their sexual and reproductive choices and rights.  

More than once I felt tears welling in my eyes as speakers relayed the intersecting oppressions that prevent women and their families from making meaningful choices about whether and when to have a child and from achieving happy and healthy birth outcomes. But the tears were tempered by the knowledge that I was in a room full of people dedicated to eradicating barriers to reproductive justice. And despite the discomforts that we may encounter on our respective campuses discussing sex, sexuality, reproduction, and their attendant taboos, a successful reproductive justice movement demands that we leave the warmth and comfort of the Leadership Institute—energized and renewed from the infusion of support we have received—and return to our campuses determined to forge unlikely, and even uncomfortable, partnerships that will enable us to reach more people , engage in more effective activism, and foster stronger legal scholarship and leadership around reproductive justice.

- Lauren R.S. Mendonsa

It’s 10 o’clock on Saturday morning, and we’ve just heard that reproductive justice is about “applying an intersectional analysis to the issues.” In other words, repro justice infractions don’t occur in a bubble! Often, women (and men) confronting reproductive injustices are the same ones confronting sexism, racism, classism, homophobia.

And at the intersection of sex and gender and race and class is LSRJ: these men and women convening in this great hall whose backgrounds are as varied as the privileges they’ve enjoyed and the rights for which they’ve had to fight. Hard.  This is probably why I love it.

This is definitely why I’m super-enjoying an opportunity to brainstorm with folks about shared concerns, nurturing one another’s aspirations to move and shake and make change. PS) Hugest thanks to tablemates Caleb, Kelly, Shannon, Tori, Megan, Kate, and Lauren for their willingness to share from their own experiences in campus organizing and for inspiring this blogger to take some of these same ideas home with me!

- Jonelle Kusminsky

 “I’m working for Law Students for Reproductive Justice… It’s a pro-choice group.”  By the fifth time someone asked me what I was doing for the summer, I had become used to the follow-up question.  For the last year, since I became a member, I thought that reproductive justice was simply a nice way of saying “pro-choice.”  To paraphrase Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon (and Buddhist philosophy), I quickly learned that I was pointing at the moon… focusing on the finger, and missing all of the heavenly glory.

At the Oakland intern training, we were basically put through a boot camp of reproductive rights issues, getting quick overviews of all of the different issues that we are fighting for.  We learned about the status of reproductive health care access in Africa, what the Obama administration is doing for reproductive rights issues, and what the Northern California ACLU is doing to ensure that students here are getting accurate sex education in schools.  The most important realization that I came to, however, involves the definition of reproductive justice.

The RJ movement is more than ensuring that people have access to abortions.  Reproductive justice ensures that everyone has the right to make an informed decision regarding the time and manner that they reproduce.  This definition encompasses immigrants’ rights, environmental justice, social justice, LGBTQIQ issues, abortion rights, and numerous other issues.  We don’t have reproductive justice if women don’t have the right to an abortion, but we also don’t have reproductive justice when women can’t access prenatal care.  We are fighting for both the ability to procure birth control, and the ability to access assisted reproductive technology.

As part of my internship this summer, I am working with the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative to ensure that chemicals used in nail salons are not harmful to either workers or patrons.  As I learn more about the toxins that are part of every day items, I think about how the term “reproductive justice” enables me to talk about this issue more coherently.  It represents a philosophy that I have always held dear, but have never really been able to express: the hope that everyone will be able to choose when, and if, they want to have children, without any other factors standing in the way of them exercising that right. 

-Jacob Johnson