Monday, November 4, 2024

New Book on Reproductive Labor and Innovation

Jennifer Denbow has published "Reproductive Labor and Innovation: Against the Tech Fix in an Era of Hype" with the Duke University Press. The book description is excerpted here: 

In Reproductive Labor and Innovation, Jennifer Denbow examines how the push toward technoscientific innovation in contemporary American life often comes at the expense of the care work and reproductive labor that is necessary for society to function. Noting that the gutting of social welfare programs has shifted the burden of solving problems to individuals, Denbow argues that the aggrandizement of innovation and the degradation of reproductive labor are intertwined facets of neoliberalism. She shows that the construction of innovation as a panacea to social ills justifies the accumulation of wealth for corporate innovators and the impoverishment of those feminized and racialized people who do the bulk of reproductive labor. Moreover, even innovative technology aimed at reproduction—such as digital care work platforms and noninvasive prenatal testing—obscure structural injustices and further devalue reproductive labor. By drawing connections between innovation discourse, the rise of neoliberalism, financialized capitalism, and the social and political degradation of reproductive labor, Denbow illustrates what needs to be done to destabilize the overvaluation of innovation and to offer collective support for reproduction.

November 4, 2024 in Healthcare, Pregnancy, Theory | Permalink | Comments (0)

Monday, October 28, 2024

Yvette Butler on "Silencing the Sex Worker"

Yvette Butler has published "Silencing the Sex Worker" in Volume 71 of the UCLA Law Review. The abstract is excerpted here. 

This Article argues that sex workers are silenced when they attempt to contribute to lawmaking processes. As a result, they are unable to contribute their knowledge in a meaningful way. The consequence is that laws reflect only one perspective of life in the sex trades: the prostitution abolitionist position that all sex work is inherently a form of violence against women. Without the ability to help shape this narrative, sex workers will continue to be silenced by the allegation that they are a danger to the feminist movement, courts will make harmful rulings, and legislatures will continue to enact laws that put sex workers in danger.

 

This Article makes several contributions. Firstly, it contributes to feminist philosophical literature by coining the “Cycle of Epistemic Oppression” as a tool to excavate silencing within the law. It then examines how this cycle operates in the context of sex work policy making. Finally, this examination demonstrates the wide applicability of the Cycle of Epistemic Oppression to diverse areas of law.

October 28, 2024 in Courts, Theory, Violence Against Women, Workplace | Permalink | Comments (0)

How Television is Depicting Abortion Post-Dobbs

An article titled "Women's Lives Are on the Line, and Our Hands Are Tied”: How Television Is Reckoning With a Post-Dobbs America" was published by Stephanie Herold in Women's Health Issues. The article concludes: 

Since Dobbs, more television plotlines are portraying obstacles to abortion care, yet they continue to tell stories of white, non-parenting teenagers who make up a small percentage of real abortion patients. Plotlines overrepresent procedural abortion over the more common medication abortion. Depictions of health-related reasons for abortion seeking obscure more commonly provided reasons for abortions, such as mistimed pregnancies, caregiving responsibilities, and financial concerns. Considering the low levels of abortion knowledge nationwide, understanding what (mis)information audiences encounter onscreen is increasingly important.

October 28, 2024 in Abortion, Healthcare, Pop Culture, Pregnancy, Reproductive Rights, Work/life | Permalink | Comments (0)

New Book about "Birth in Times of Despair"

The N.Y.U. Press has published Carina Heckert's book "Birth in Times of Despair: Reproductive Violence on the US-Mexico Border." The book description is excerpted below:

In El Paso, Texas, the racist undertones of anti-immigrant sentiment have contributed to various forms of violence in the region, including the 2019 mass shooting that was the deadliest attack on Latinos in US history. As the community continued to mourn this tragedy, the COVID-19 pandemic unleashed yet another set of economic, social, and public health catastrophes that were disproportionately felt within the border region.

In Birth in Times of Despair, Carina Heckert traces women’s emotional experiences of pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum period in the midst of a series of longstanding and ongoing crises in the US-Mexico border region. Drawing from interviews, surveys, and medical records of women who gave birth during an intense period of sociopolitical crisis, she examines how limited access to health care, inhumane immigration policies, and exposure to an array of harmful social environmental circumstances serve as sources of intense harm for pregnant and recently pregnant women. In so doing, Heckert reveals how these experiences serve as a profound critique of policies that continue to fail to protect women and their families. She concludes with suggestions for practical, humane, and urgent policy changes to alleviate the needless suffering of this vulnerable group.

With its comprehensive portrait of the abysmal physical and mental health outcomes pregnant women face within the border region, Birth in Times of Despair expands our understanding of how obstetric violence is enhanced by the structural violence of the state, and unveils the urgency to ameliorate the harm caused by current immigration policies. 

October 28, 2024 in Books, Healthcare, International, Pregnancy, Reproductive Rights | Permalink | Comments (0)

Friday, October 25, 2024

The Gender Gap in Election 2024, Including Among Young People

Guardian, Gender is Going to Be a Huge Factor in this Election. Here's What the Data Shows.

**Polling shows that the gender gap, which we have seen in every presidential election since 1980, is at a record high. The gender gap, defined as the difference between the vote margin among women and the vote margin among men between Democrats and Republicans, is the key to success for Kamala Harris and other Democrats – they need to win women by more than they lose men.

Recent polling varies, but these polls all demonstrate a significant gender gap. A Quinnipiac University poll from September shows a 26-point gender gap: women favor Harris 53% to 41% for Donald Trump, a 12-point advantage, while men favor Trump 54% to 40% for a 14-point advantage. A Suffolk University poll from August of likely voters shows a 34-point gender gap, with women supporting Harris 57% to 36% for Trump for a 21-point margin and men supporting Trump 51% to 38% for Harris for a 13-point margin. And an Echelon Insights poll in September also found a 10-point gender gap, with women favoring Harris 54% to 43% for Trump for an 11-point advantage and men 49% for Harris and 48% for Trump.

Women and men are making different calculations as they plan to vote, and what drives these intentions are their most important issues and their perceptions of the candidates. Since the US supreme court ruled that states can ban abortion, abortion has been a top voting issue for female voters, especially younger women. In swing state polling conducted by the New York Times/Siena College in August, the economy and inflation are men’s most important issue in deciding their vote. For women, abortion and the economy and inflation are tied as the most important issues, and for women under age 45, abortion is the single most important voting issue

NY Times, The Gender Election

A dramatic new gender divide has formed among the country’s youngest voters. Young men have drifted toward Donald Trump, while young women are surging toward Kamala Harris. As a result, men and women under the age of 30, once similar in their politics, are now farther apart than any other generation of voters. ***

So, in general, women are more likely to vote Democratic than men. But in most age groups, the difference is pretty small. Among the youngest voters, which means 18 - to 29-year-olds, it’s really big this time around, bigger than for any older age group.

Young men are, a small majority of them, planning to vote for Donald Trump. That has not necessarily generally been true of young people. The majority of young people voted for Biden, no matter their gender.***

You do, in general, and they are. But this time, polls are showing something different for young men. Just over half of them appear to be voting for Donald Trump. Meanwhile, 2/3 or more of young women are planning to vote for Kamala Harris, which is a bigger share than any other group by age or gender.

October 25, 2024 in Abortion, Gender, Masculinities, Media, Pop Culture | Permalink | Comments (0)

OH Court Permanently Blocks Six-Week Abortion Ban, Criticizing AG for Pursuing After Passage of Constitutional Amendment for Reproductive Freedom

Ohio Judge Blocks Abortion Ban, Criticizes Republican Attorney General

An Ohio judge permanently struck down the state's ban on abortion after about six weeks on Thursday and criticized its Republican attorney general for attempting to circumvent the will of Ohioans who voted to enshrine abortion protections in the state constitution.
 
Judge Christian Jenkins of the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas in Cincinnati said, opens new tab the Republican-backed 2019 state law would interfere with women's ability to receive abortions and discourage doctors from performing them, in violation of a constitutional amendment approved by voters last year.
 
The office of Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, a Republican, acknowledged that the ban itself could not stand in light of the ballot initiative, but had argued that 14 other provisions of the state law should be upheld.
 
Those included requirements to have doctors check for fetal heartbeats before performing abortions, inform patients seeking abortions when their fetuses are viable, and have patients wait 24 hours after seeing a doctor before undergoing an abortion
 
Jenkins said those provisions were unconstitutional because the ballot measure's broad wording prohibits any burden on the ability to exercise the right to have an abortion.
 
He noted that when the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 overruled its landmark Roe v. Wade precedent that had guaranteed abortion rights nationwide, it said it was returning the issue of abortion to individual states and that "women are not without electoral or political power."
 
"Ohio's Attorney General evidently didn't get the memo," wrote Jenkins, a Democrat who was elected to his post in 2021. "Unlike the Ohio Attorney General, this court will uphold the Ohio Constitution's protection of abortion rights."
 
ACLU, Ohio Judge Permanently Strikes Down Six-Week Abortion Ban, Which Clearly Violates the Ohio Constitution's Reproductive Freedom Amendment
 
“This is a momentous ruling, showing the power of Ohio’s new Reproductive Freedom Amendment in practice. The six-week ban is blatantly unconstitutional and has no place in our law,” added Jessie Hill, cooperating attorney for the ACLU of Ohio [and law professor, Case Western Reserve Law School].
 
A copy of the decision [PreTerm Cleveland v. Yost] can be found here.
 
See also Ohio Abortion Ban Ruled Unconstitutional by County Judge in Wake of Voter-Approved Referendum
 
 

October 25, 2024 in Abortion, Constitutional, Reproductive Rights | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Ohio Supreme Court Declines to Hear Case Over IVF Embryos at Divorce that Held Embryos are "Life or Potential for Life"

Ohio Supreme Court Declines to Hear Couple's Fight Over IVF Embryos

Ohio Supreme Court justices will not hear a divorcing couple's fight over their IVF-created frozen embryos, citing jurisdiction. Justices Patrick Fischer and Jennifer Brunner dissented.

Instead, the seven-member court republished the 9th District Court of Appeals decision from Summit County, which upheld that all frozen embryos be granted to the wife so she might use them to become pregnant.

Although the Summit County decision did not firmly rule on whether frozen embryos have the same rights as people, it did determine that embryos are not marital property but are "life or the potential for life."

For Tracy Thomas, a University of Akron law professor, the Ohio Supreme Court's decision not to hear the case left many questions unanswered. Until those questions are answered, the decision will likely not induce a wave of sweeping changes across the Buckeye State.

"The appellate court's decision stays as good precedent in that district and is persuasive to the rest of (Ohio's) appellate courts," Thomas explained.***

At the heart of the case was an IVF contract signed by the wife, E.B., and husband, R.N. Both parties argued the contract allowed them to do what they wanted with 14 frozen embryos once they decided to divorce.

A Summit County trial court ruled that the embryos should be split equally between the two parties, citing the contract. On appeal, the wife argued the contract was vague and did not account for her situation.

Appeals Judge Donna Carr ruled in favor of the wife, granting all 14 embryos to her.

The trial court, Carr wrote, should have considered the parties' intent and wishes instead of relying on an ambiguous contract.

"The express public policy of the State of Ohio is to prefer the preservation and continuation of life whenever constitutionally permissible," Carr wrote. "While the statute specifically addresses abortion, it is nonetheless telling and instructive to courts addressing what should become of frozen embryos caught up in the midst of a divorce proceeding."

At the same time, Carr acknowledged the Ohio constitutional right to contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one's pregnancy, miscarriage care and abortion.

Thomas said this part of the ruling likely would not stand up under review by the Ohio Supreme Court. She argued that it conflicts with Ohio's constitutional reproductive rights amendment, which says life begins when a fetus can live outside the womb, also known as fetal viability.

The case decided by three women judges is E.B. v. R.N., 2024-Ohio-1455 (Ohio App. 9th Dist. April 2024)

 

October 22, 2024 in Abortion, Constitutional, Courts, Family, Legislation, Pregnancy, Reproductive Rights, Science | Permalink | Comments (0)

Justice O'Connor's Papers Show She Would Have Dissented in Chevron

CNN, What Sandra Day O'Connor's Papers Reveal About a Landmark Supreme Court Decision (April 2024)

The newly opened papers of the late Justice Sandra Day O’Connor reveal the internal deliberations of a groundbreaking Supreme Court case [Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council] that gave US regulators significant latitude to protect the environment and public health – and show how the ruling almost never happened.***

More broadly, O’Connor’s contemporaneous notes now open at the Library of Congress offer a view into how nine justices communicate in private, revealing personal predilections and some exasperation as they negotiate against looming deadlines.

In the Chevron case, testing the protections of the Clean Air Act, the papers reveal an overall tentativeness among justices as they struggled with statutory intricacies and worked toward compromise while teetering on the loss of a quorum (only six of the nine justices were on the final tally).***

According to O’Connor’s note from the first vote in the justices’ private conference in mid-May, only Justices Byron White and William Rehnquist wanted to grant the case. O’Connor offered a “join 3,” meaning she would provide the requisite fourth vote if three others wanted to hear the case. But there was no third vote at that point.

Powell asked that they all wait at least another week so he could continue mulling the dispute, and when the nine again voted at the end of the month, he was ready to provide a third vote. So, with O’Connor’s “join three” the case was accepted.

On the day of oral arguments, February 29, 1984, two justices happened to be out ill (Rehnquist and Thurgood Marshall). They both declined to participate in further deliberations on the case.***

In the justices-only conference after the Chevron oral arguments, the vote among the seven participating justices was a close 4-3. O’Connor recorded most of the justices as being tentative or “very shaky.”

She also appeared mildly irritated with Rehnquist’s withdrawal. He had been one of the bare-minimum votes to grant the case. O’Connor wrote on her tally sheet next to Rehnquist’s name: “out of case tho was one of 4 to grant!”

So why didn't she dissent? She recused at the last minute, post-argument:

That very same day, June 14, O’Connor revealed a potential conflict of interest.***

Back in 1984, O’Connor’s recusal reasoning was kept private, although at the end of the decision it noted that she, Marshall and Rehnquist took no part in the decision. According to her June 14 once-confidential note to colleagues, she appears to have erred on the cautious side.

“I have reviewed the petitions for certiorari in these cases and discovered that I should be recused. Since the arguments were heard, my father died,” she wrote of her father, Harry Day, who ran the family’s Lazy B ranch in Arizona.

“His estate is still unsettled, but I will have a remainder interest in a trust to be established. His estate holds stock in at least one of the parties to this action and until it is settled, I think it best that I not participate,” she added.

Dissenting in Chevron would have meant rejecting Reagan's pro-business agency interpretation. For the decision in Chevron meant upholding an interpretation of the Clean Air Act favorable to industry, requiring less regulation. Maybe that is also why Rehnquist so easily bowed out, rather than following up on his cert grant and reviewing the transcript or recording of the oral argument he missed.

The Chevron dispute began when the Reagan administration retrenched on standards for air quality and loosened state permitting requirements for new and expanded factories and power plants. . . . . After the Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups sued, the DC Circuit US Court of Appeals agreed with environmentalists that the regulation conflicted with the statute and set it aside.

October 22, 2024 in Constitutional, Courts, Judges, Legislation, SCOTUS | Permalink | Comments (0)

Monday, October 21, 2024

N.Y. Times Opinion Captures Post-Roe America

The New York Times has published a powerful, emotive, and complex picture of abortion access in post-Roe America. The N.Y. Times Opinion column uses multi-media to answer the question, "What does it really mean to live in a country where abortion is no longer a constitutional right?":

Since 2022, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, many states have made it all but impossible to get abortion care within their borders, and have done their best to isolate people facing unwanted or complicated pregnancies, making them afraid to reach out to medical providers or even to friends and loved ones who might help them. New laws have forced doctors to delay care in life-threatening situations and made women afraid to seek it, leading to preventable deaths. Did anyone really want this?

* * *

 

The stories we found were ones of women getting access — just barely. Of doctors and volunteers white-knuckling it to provide the support, funding, care required. But there are many stories of women who don’t manage to navigate the chaos, who get lost in the fault lines. As recently reported by ProPublica, shortly after Roe was overturned, a woman in Georgia died as a result of delayed access to an abortion. In her story there are echoes of the ones shared with us — unsupervised, she had complications with her medication abortion, like Chelsea. She had to travel out of state but was thwarted by circumstances beyond her control, like Evie. She needed a doctor, like Dr. Kelley, who recognized her situation as life-threatening. She was not as lucky as the women you’ve met here. How many more of her are out there? How many more will there be if we continue down this path?

Read the full compilation here

October 21, 2024 in Abortion, Healthcare, Reproductive Rights | Permalink | Comments (0)

New Complaint Filed in N.D. Tex. Challenges Mifepristone Regulation

The States of Missouri, Kansas, and Idaho have sued the FDA challenging the regulatory framework for Mifepristone. The suit is filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas Amarillo Division. 

The Complaint alleges that state laws hold primary responsibility for regulating the medical field: 

478. “[F]rom time immemorial,” the States have maintained primary responsibility for regulating the medical field through their constitutionally reserved powers to protect their citizens’ health and welfare. Dent v. West Virginia, 129 U.S. 114, 122 (1889). 479. Each State “has a significant role to play in regulating the medical profession,” Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U.S. 124, 157 (2007), as well as “an interest in protecting the integrity and ethics of the medical profession,” Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 731 (1997). This includes “maintaining high standards of professional conduct” in the practice of medicine. Barsky v. Bd. of Regents of Univ. of N.Y.

481. To serve these compelling sovereign interests, Plaintiff States have enacted statutes regulating and, in certain instances, prohibiting, abortion drugs.

482. These laws ensure the proper regulation of the practice of medicine and the medical profession but Defendants’ actions undermine all these laws—including state abortion restrictions and state abortion-drug reporting laws. 

The Complaint continues that:

The FDA’s deregulatory actions lead to increased harm and increased medical care for complications from chemical abortion drugs.

616. Plaintiffs’ citizens include women and girls who have suffered and will suffer from complications from the FDA’s unlawful approval of chemical abortion drugs and subsequent elimination of the safeguards previously included with the use of chemical abortion drugs.

The First Claim alleges: 

758. The FDA lacked legal authority when issuing the challenged 2016 Major Changes.

759. The FDA’s illegal and unreasonable rationales for the challenged 2016 Major Changes—in light of the political context of the agency’s actions—indicate that the stated reasons are pretext. Therefore, they are arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and otherwise not in accordance with law in violation of the APA. 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A).

760. The challenged 2016 Major Changes were unlawful because the FDA acknowledged that they were “interrelated,” but failed to explain why the agency did not consider the cumulative impact of removing them all at once or why the agency could extrapolate safety conclusions for its omnibus changes from studies that did not evaluate those changes as a whole.

 

761. The FDA’s actions seek to enable the violation of state laws restricting abortion, as described above. But a federal agency cannot disregard applicable state law or seek to enable and encourage what state law expressly prohibits, so the FDA lacked legal authority and acted arbitrarily and capriciously when issuing the challenged 2016 Major Changes.

 

762. Therefore, the challenged 2016 Major Changes, and, by necessity, the 2019 Mifepristone REMS Program and the 2021/2023 Removal of the In-Person Dispensing Protection must be held unlawful, stayed, set aside, vacated, and preliminarily and permanently enjoined under the APA and the Court’s inherent equitable power to enjoin ultra vires actions, Larson, 337 U.S. at 689–91.

 

The Complaint seeks the following relief: 

A. Issues a preliminary injunction or a stay of the effective dates that

  1. reinstates the REMS that were in place before 2016 insofar as they restore the Day 3 and Day 14 follow-up visits, restore the gestational age to 7 weeks from 10 weeks, restore the requirement that prescribers be physicians, and restore the requirement that prescribers must report all serious non-fatal adverse events to the agency;
  2. rescinds the 2019 generic approval; and
  3. restores the in-person dispensing requirement.

B. Issues a permanent injunction ordering Defendants to withdraw Defendants’ actions to deregulate these abortion drugs.

 

C. Holds unlawful, sets aside, and vacates the challenged 2016 Major Changes.

D. Holds unlawful, sets aside, and vacates the 2019 ANDA Approval.


E. Holds unlawful, sets aside, and vacates the 2021/2023 Removal of the In-Person Dispensing Protection, including the Pharmacy Authorization.

 

F. Holds unlawful the provision of drugs to adolescent populations because the FDA lacked authority under § 355c(a)(2)(B)(i) to extrapolate pediatric effectiveness.

 

G. Declares that the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act prohibits the FDA from relying exclusively on studies that fail to evaluate the safety of interrelated changes in the proposed labeling thereof when reviewing and approving a supplemental new drug application without explaining why it was permissible to do so.

 

H. Declares that 18 U.S.C. § 1461 and 18 U.S.C. § 1462 prohibit the FDA from approving a supplemental new drug application that fails to limit distribution of abortion drugs in accordance with these laws.

 

I. Retains jurisdiction of this matter for the purpose of enforcing this Court’s order.

 

J. Awards Plaintiffs’ costs, attorneys’ fees, and other disbursements for this action.

 

K. Grants any other relief this Court deems equitable, just, and appropriate.

 

The full complaint is available here: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txnd.370067/gov.uscourts.txnd.370067.195.1.pdf 

 

October 21, 2024 in Abortion, Courts, Healthcare, Pregnancy, Reproductive Rights | Permalink | Comments (0)

UCLA Law Report on How Election Could Effect IVF

The UCLA Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy has published a report on "How this Election Could Affect Access to IVF." Authored by Cary Franklin, Melissa Goodman, and Amanda Barrow, the report analyzes how the Republican presidential platform in support of "personhood" is fundamentally at odds with support for IVF. It concludes that:

Personhood is irreconcilable with the current standard practice for IVF, which often involves the creation of more embryos than are used. Under personhood theory, the discarding of the remaining embryos could bring civil or criminal penalties, and could be considered homicide or abuse. Thus, the Republican Party’s support for personhood is in direct conflict with claims that the party will support “policies that advance ... IVF (fertility treatments).”

 

* * *

If personhood is advanced in federal law or permitted to spread in state law unconstrained by federal protections—as set forth in the Republican Party platform and presidential transition plan—access to IVF will be at risk.

Read the full report here.  

October 21, 2024 in Abortion, Healthcare, Reproductive Rights | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wednesday, October 16, 2024

The Reasonable Pregnant Worker under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act

Madeleine Gyory, The Reasonable Pregnant Worker, 113 Calif. L. Rev. ___ (forthcoming 2025)

Pregnant workers often need changes to their work responsibilities to stay healthy during pregnancy while earning a needed paycheck. Congress passed the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) in December 2022, entitling many workers for the first time to "reasonable accommodations" for their pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions, so long as they do not impose an "undue hardship" on their employer. The PWFA dictates that the law's key terms, "reasonable accommodation" and "undue hardship," should be construed as they are under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), ADA caselaw, and new PWFA regulations issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in April 2024. But what if these sources conflict? ADA caselaw frequently departs from the ADA's statutory and regulatory text, and is in tension with the EEOC's new PWFA regulations, producing a muddied reasonable accommodation doctrine that poses challenges for future PWFA claimants. 

This Article is the first to address how the chaotic ADA doctrine will impact implementation of the PWFA and to consider how ADA caselaw should be read in conjunction with the EEOC's new PWFA rule. Anticipating future litigation, this Article proposes a framework for litigants and courts assessing reasonable accommodation claims under the PWFA that adapts ADA precedent to account for the PWFA regulations. It argues that the PWFA rule is entitled to some deference under Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo because Congress delegated specific authority to the EEOC to interpret the phrase "reasonable accommodation." Finally, this Article demonstrates why, under its proposed framework, the PWFA will often require employers to accommodate temporary transfers, remote work, and leave, notwithstanding conflicting ADA caselaw

 

October 16, 2024 in Equal Employment, Family, Legislation, Pregnancy | Permalink | Comments (0)

A Health Justice Approach to Abortion

Maya Manian, A Health Justice Approach to Abortion, 4 Health Matrix: Journal of Law-Medicine 261 (2024).

 *** This Article is the first to extend the health justice framework to abortion. The health justice framework offers a new form of medicalization that could advance more equitable access to reproductive health care.

Medicalization has a complicated history in the legal regulation of abortion. Although scholars do not all agree on a definition of the concept, “medicalization” is typically defined as the framing of a phenomenon as medical in nature and properly within the jurisdiction of medical experts in terms of decision-making authority. Feminist scholars have often viewed medicalization suspiciously, especially in the context of reproduction, since medicalization has tended to correspond with physician control over women’s bodies. In the last few decades of intense debate over abortion, the focus has been on abortion as a constitutional right, but the notion of abortion as a medical concern has been lost since Roe, in part due to feminist arguments against medicalizing abortion rights. In the decades since Roe, abortion has been siloed from healthcare in the law and segregated from mainstream medicine.

This Article pushes back against feminist legal scholars’ critiques of the medicalization of abortion rights. It argues that, unlike the medicalization of the past, the health justice framework depends less on the sole professional authority of physicians and more on concerns about the social determinants of health and health equity at the population level. The health justice approach accommodates medicalized framings by focusing on public health outcomes of abortion restrictions, while also aiming for reducing health disparities through structural reforms and redistribution of resources rather than physician-controlled medical interventions. The health justice framework thus links together both medicalized (health-focused) and demedicalized (equality-focused) framings of abortion in a way that could advance reproductive health equity. Re-medicalizing abortion through a health justice lens provides strategic benefits in political and social climates hostile to abortion, especially in a post-Dobbs world.

October 16, 2024 in Abortion, Constitutional, Healthcare, Reproductive Rights | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tuesday, October 15, 2024

CFP West Coast Sexuality, Gender and Law Conference

Call for Papers here.

Second Annual West Coast Sexuality, Gender & Law Conference

 Call for Papers and Commentators

Abstract Submission Deadline: 

December 15, 2024, 11:59 PM Pacific

 

Submission Portal

 

*Please note that this link is also for those volunteering to serve as commentators/discussants.

We are pleased to announce the second annual West Coast Sexuality, Gender & Law Conference, to be held on February 21-22, 2025 in Irvine, California. The University of California, Irvine School of Law will serve as the conference host.

Alongside increasing political and legal attacks against LGBTQ people, legal and political efforts are seeking to shape and reassert normative views of gender and the family. In that environment, scholarship exploring issues of sexuality, gender, and the law is more necessary than ever. The goal of the Conference is to provide attendees with detailed, constructive feedback on their work in a supportive, collegial environment, and to build community among scholars working on these issues (especially those on the West Coast). Scholars at all levels of seniority are encouraged. We also encourage submissions at different stages of progress, from early drafts (incubators) to more developed forms (a work-in-progress session).

The Conference will consist of several concurrent paper sessions over the course of one and a half days. Participants will be expected to attend one paper session during each of the scheduled time blocks and to read and be prepared to discuss those papers in a constructive manner.

There is no conference or registration fee. Participants will be responsible for the costs of their own flight, other transportation, and hotel arrangements (we are working on reserving a block of hotel rooms for the conference). We will provide a conference dinner on Friday evening, as well as breakfast, lunch, and snacks on Saturday morning.

To preserve an intimate and supportive character, we can accommodate only 45 participants. Although we will try to fulfill all requests, if space is limited, some preference will be given to West Coast-based scholars.

To apply, please submit a CV and an abstract of no more than 500 words here by December 15, 2024. Submissions will be vetted by the organizing committee (listed below). Selection will be based on the originality of the abstract as well as its capacity to engage with the other papers in a collaborative dialogue. Participants will be notified of their selection as soon as feasible after the due date. Drafts of papers will be due approximately two weeks prior to the Conference. As noted above, commentator volunteers should also indicate their interest via the submission portal.

We look forward to your submissions and participation. Questions can be directed to the organizing committee members at [email protected].

Thank you!

Courtney Cahill, UC Irvine

Andrew Gilden, Willamette

Courtney Joslin, UC Davis

Yvette Lindgren, UMKC

Kaipo Matsumura, Loyola LA

Brian Soucek, UC Davis

Ari Ezra Waldman, UC Irvine

October 15, 2024 in Call for Papers, Gender, Law schools, LGBT, Scholarship | Permalink | Comments (0)

Police Minimalism in Domestic Violence

Michal Buchhandler-Raphael, Police Minimalism in Domestic Violence, 57 Arizona State Law J (forthcoming 2025)

The United States Supreme Court’s June 2024 decision in U.S. v. Rahimi upheld the constitutionality of the federal ban on gun possession for individuals under domestic violence restraining orders. This ruling underscores the question: is armed police response always warranted in domestic violence incidents? As primary responders to most emergencies, police dedicate much of their time to handling domestic incidents. Data suggests that calls related to such incidents form the majority of police call-outs, ranging from fifteen to potentially over fifty percent, depending on the jurisdiction. And yet, police are unequipped and ill-suited for this work. As with law enforcement’s recent involvement in dismantling encampments on college campuses, police response, with its tactics of arrests and the use of force, is questionably suited to complex social issues. In the context of domestic violence, properly responding requires expertise and training in mediation, social work, and victim assistance–qualifications that police officers typically lack.

The police’s role as default first responders stems not from their suitability for managing family crises but from a lack of other viable strategies. While many jurisdictions are experimenting with novel programs that incorporate trained civilian responders to address emergencies like mental health crises and drug overdoses, such initiatives do not yet cover domestic violence incidents.

This Article advocates for jurisdictions to explore alternative responses. It proposes the integration of civilian responders, either as co-responders or independent actors, depending on the specific safety risks of each case as determined by risk assessment tools. These diversified responder models are designed to recognize that while police involvement in domestic violence situations can sometimes be inevitable, it should be reduced to the necessary minimum to protect against potential violence. The Rahimi decision further bolsters the non-police response to domestic violence, as survivors have access to a civil remedy to ensure their protection. Further, this remedy increases the viability of diversified responder models; as fewer abusers possess firearms, the rationale for armed police response to domestic violence weakens.

October 15, 2024 in Violence Against Women | Permalink | Comments (0)

Charitable Giving to Women's and Girls' Organizations Represents only 1.9 Percent of Giving

Giving to Women’s and Girls’ Organizations Exceeds $10 Billion for First Time yet Still Represents 1.9 Percent of Charitable Giving in the U.S.

The Women’s Philanthropy Institute (WPI) at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy today released its sixth annual Women & Girls Index (WGI), the only systematically generated, comprehensive index that measures charitable giving to organizations dedicated to women and girls in the U.S., including the amount of philanthropic support they receive from individuals, foundations, and corporations. The 2024 WGI adds finalized IRS data from 2021(the last year for which financial data is available) across 54,588 organizations—providing an analysis on the decade 2012 to 2021 that highlights both gaps and growth in philanthropic support for women and girls.

For the first time, women’s and girls’ organizations surpassed $10 billion in giving as they received $10.2 billion in philanthropic support in 2021. This historic milestone is set against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic’s ongoing disproportionate impact on women, particularly women of color and those in low-wage jobs, and ongoing discussions about the systemic barriers to gender equity. While awareness of gender-focused issues such as pay equity and reproductive rights has grown, overall charitable giving that supports women and girls remains relatively small at 1.9% of total giving. This statistic highlights the continued need for greater philanthropic support across the full spectrum of causes that improve the lives of women and girls.

October 15, 2024 in Business, Pop Culture | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thursday, October 10, 2024

SCOTUS Decision Freezing Title IX Rules Made a Huge Mess

The case is Department of Education v. Louisiana, 603 U.S. ___ (Aug. 16, 2024)

Newsweek, Supreme Court Made a "Hugh Mess" With Title IX Ruling

The Supreme Court's recent ruling on transgender rights in education is a giant mess that has left everyone confused, a legal analyst has said.

Steve Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C, wrote that the court's ruling on a pair of emergency applicants raises more questions than it answers.

The controversy involves the federal civil rights legislation, Title IX, which was introduced in 1972 to end discrimination against women in education.

The Biden administration introduced a "final rule for Title IX," which would use those protections to end "sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics."

It has been met with fierce opposition in many conservative states, where parents argue it will lead to transgender students in women's toilets and women's sports teams.

In two lawsuits—Department of Education v. Louisiana and Cardona v. Tennessee—lower federal courts temporarily blocked the entirety of the new rules while the cases play out in appeals court.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear an emergency case from the Department of Education, which is seeking to lift those lower court emergency injunctions.

In a 5-4 majority decision on Friday, the Supreme Court declined a Department of Education emergency request to reinstate portions of the new rules that are not related to gender identity and sexual orientation, with the majority writing that they were not given "a sufficient basis to disturb the lower courts' interim conclusions."

Conservative Neil Gorsuch joined liberal Justices Elena KaganSonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson in dissent, arguing that the gender identity and sexual orientation rules should be paused during the appeals because they are related to alleged "injuries" suffered by the states, but the rest of the new rules should resume.

Writing in his Supreme Court blog, One First, Vladeck explained that he wanted to focus on Friday's Department of Education v. Louisiana case because "it was literally the only ruling that the Court handed down last week and because it's both a big deal and a huge mess."

Vladeck's problem with the ruling is that it freezes all of Biden's new rules on Title IX, the vast majority of which has nothing to do with transgender rights.

"The rule does lots of other things … many of which have nothing whatsoever to do with gender identity," he wrote.

October 10, 2024 in Education, Gender, LGBT | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rethinking Law and Literature to Define Narrative Justice for MeToo and Other Fields

Geeta Tewari, MeToo: Rethinking Law and Literature to Define Narrative Justice, 102 Oregon L. Rev. 489 (2024) 

The law and literature movement is transforming into something new. This Article will discuss what that newness is, how it came about, and the different shapes it takes to provide the legal community with a platform to contribute to a working definition for narrative justice. Creatively, technologically, and economically, public institutions and legal culture are rethinking the value of voice and story. With concrete examples of innovations and social movements, this Article will demonstrate how both action and inaction have propelled us as a society toward urgency in defining and claiming narrative justice. The Introduction canvasses U.S. case law to discuss patterns of narrative incorporation—or the concerning lack thereof. Recently, we have seen a new growth in this field: an emphasis by activists, artists, and academics, among others internationally, on applying voice, story, and journey to present conflicts and problems. The next Part discusses the critical points where public and private institutions, as well as individual citizens, have catalyzed to birth a new field of narrative justice. Specifically, I discuss the #MeToo movement, as well as cities’ work, community, individual empowerment, recent interdisciplinary legal scholarship, and teaching models, which are all analyzed for their inclusion of narrative. City government “storytellers” and the action of the #MeToo movement are two rich examples of law and literature’s expansion to activism through narrative justice. Finally, in Part IV, I dissect the lack of narrative presently in corporate law and the growing legal field of environmental, social, and governance advising, which should include the concept of narrative justice. This Article concludes with a proposal for a working definition and function of narrative justice, based on the examples reviewed herein as they relate to each other, the precipitating field of law and literature, and the need for updated terminology and pedagogy to further advance the practice of law as a moral, ethical, and just profession.

October 10, 2024 in Business, Equal Employment, Theory, Workplace | Permalink | Comments (0)

Intersectionality and Women's Participation in Peace Negotiations

Jenna Sapiano, Gina Heathcote & Xianan Jin, Intersectionality and Women's Participation in Peace Negotiations, forthcoming International Affairs (2024) 

The Women, Peace and Security resolutions have consistently called for women’s increased participation at all levels in institutions and mechanisms for preventing, managing and resolving conflict. Despite a long history of feminist interventions to disrupt categories of gender as a stagnant, ahistorical or geographically consistent structure, rationales for women’s inclusion continue to rest on problematic narratives and assumptions. We draw on twenty-nine interviews with practitioners whom we asked to speak about their experiences in peace negotiations and the expectations placed on women involved in these processes. The problematic narratives and assumptions we identify on the basis of these interviews and academic literature have the effect of diminishing women’s agency and, thus, their ability to participate in peace negotiations on their terms. Women contribute positively to the durability of peace and the inclusion of gender provisions in agreements. Still, when women’s identities are constructed as one-dimensional, the benefits of women’s inclusion remain paradoxically a cause for celebration and a partial gain. In this article, we apply theories of intersectionality, informed by Black and African feminisms, to expose women’s subject positions that may be made invisible because of assumptions that continue to be associated with calls for women’s participation in peace negotiations.

October 10, 2024 in Gender, International, Theory | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tuesday, October 8, 2024

Women Kicked Off Plane for Wearing Crop Tops

Sexist Flight Attendant Boots Female Passengers Over Crop Tops

Two female passengers have accused a Spirit Airlines flight attendant of sexism after he allegedly kicked them off a plane for their choice of dress, as seen in a viral Instagram video.

“It’s just humiliating having to be escorted and treated like a criminal just because we were wearing crop tops,” one of the flyers, named Tara, told the Daily Mail while detailing the alleged blouse arrest.

She and her friend Teresa were flying from Los Angeles to New Orleans to celebrate the former’s birthday when the crewmember singled them out.***

According to the airline’s contract of carriage, a passenger may be asked to vacate the aircraft if “inadequately clothed” or if their attire “is lewd, obscene, or offensive in nature.”

Spirit Airlines Passengers Claimed They Were Kicked Off Plane by Male Flight Attendant for Wearing Crop Tops

October 8, 2024 in Business, Pop Culture | Permalink | Comments (0)