Gender and the Law Blog

New Books "Young and Restless," A Legal History of Young Women's Role as Forces of Change

Book Review: "Young and Restless" by Mattie Kahn

Girls to the Front!  In “Young and Restless,” Mattie Kahn returns young women and girls to their rightful role in the history books: as forces for change.

And although it is not the aim of a historical survey to be prescriptive, heartening inspiration can be found in “Young and Restless,” Mattie Kahn’s thoroughgoing examination of the role of young women and girls in America’s uprisings.

Her subjects have agitated on behalf of labor and voting rights, racial dignity and equality, sexual and reproductive freedom, freedom of speech and against climate change. The solutions she illustrates include objecting, resisting — and, yes, acting up, rather than sinking into sadness and accepting the unacceptable. By taking direct action in the service of shared values, in alliance with beloved communities for a better future, girls throughout American history have discovered a sense of personal agency, often during eras when their opportunities were sharply circumscribed. Sometimes they even changed history.

Kahn, whose stated aim is to write girls back into the historical record, also considers her subjects’ lives before and after their time in the trenches. Many of the young women who took on activist roles — especially those who lived before the mid-20th century — faced intense blowback, even as they inspired others to their causes. The book also examines the place of childhood itself as a battleground on which America’s culture wars have historically been fought.

The author maintains an admirable ability to complicate her own assertions — girls have been a force for progressive change, for instance, but also a force in reactionary movements

Clarifying What Is and Isn't Part of the Proposed Ohio Constitutional Amendment for Reproductive Freedom on the Ballot Next Week

In this interview with NBC News, I try to clarify what is--and isn't--part of the proposed Ohio Constitutional Amendment for Reproductive Freedom on the ballot next week.

Adam Edelman, NBC News Ohio GOP Candidate and Issue 1

 [As to claims the amendment is about parents' rights"]

 For one, they say, there is nothing in the text or in the intent of the proposed amendment that could affect the legal rights of minors or parents in Ohio. That’s because federal and state courts, going back decades, have upheld an existing Ohio law requiring parental consent for minors seeking abortion care.

A U.S. Supreme Court decision even upheld that law, which requires any unemancipated minor to receive consent from one parent or guardian or custodian, unless a judge has ruled that an abortion is “in the best interests of the minor.”

Tracy Thomas, director of the Center for Constitutional Law at the University of Akron Law School in Ohio, said there was "no conflict" between Issue 1 and existing minors' rights — "even when the amendment language is read broadly."

"We have 50 years of case law about minors' rights and parents’ rights," Thomas said.

Those rulings, she said, have determined that “even though individuals, including minors” have constitutional reproductive rights, “they can be more regulated than adults because minors are more vulnerable, more immature.” 

“There’s no reason that would change,” she said.

In a legal analysis of the measure published last month, even Dave Yost, a Republican and the state’s attorney general, acknowledged that the measure “does not specifically address parental consent.”

Thomas explained that the claim that a woman's rapist could somehow manipulate that law to force his victim to have an abortion is also false.

"They are saying that a rapist would be an accomplice who would be immune" — under a provision in the amendment language that protects a person who "assists" someone with receiving an abortion — "and that’s just not textually accurate."

“The amendment is not doing that in any way, shape or form," Thomas said.

That's because the amendment language also makes clear that an individual's right to reproductive care is protected only if it's "voluntary."

"Someone who is assisting in an abortion that’s not voluntary is not going to be protected by this at all," Thomas explained.***

“A parent who wants to support a minor’s decision to have an abortion cannot do so,” under the law, Thomas explained. “So, defeating it actually cuts into parents’ rights.***

But there is no mention of transgender rights or parental rights in the amendment. Legal experts say it would be wrong to interpret the language to apply to most topics not specifically mentioned in the measure’s language — even when the “not limited to” phrase is considered.

“Opponents have latched on to the ‘but not limited to’ language to say that this could provide a constitutional right to, among other things, gender-affirming care rights. That’s not a legally persuasive argument,” Jonathan Entin, a constitutional law expert and professor emeritus at the Case Western Reserve School of Law in Cleveland, told NBC News earlier this year.

That’s because courts have for decades developed rules about interpreting legal documents that include lists — including ones that have “but not limited to” language — dictating that such language covers things considered only “plausibly related” to the specific items mentioned.

See also Change in Ohio Ballot Language May Have a Big Effect on Support for Issue 1 Reproductive Freedom Constitutional Amendment

Tracy Thomas, Language post

Dan Kobil, Op ed, What Ohio's Proposed Abortion Amendment Really Does

The proposed Ohio amendment reinstates the freedoms that women -- and men -- had before Dobbs. It guarantees “individuals” the right to make their own reproductive decisions, and lists contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one’s own pregnancy, miscarriage care, and abortion, before viability. Viability means that the fetus has a “significant likelihood” of surviving outside the womb. The amendment will not automatically invalidate any existing Ohio laws apart from the current six-week ban.

Rather than engage the merits of the proposal, opponents have attempted to distract voters about what the amendment actually does. They contend that the amendment is aimed at depriving parents of their ability to help children decide whether to seek an abortion or “sex changes.”

This contention is highly misleading. Ohio’s current law already limits the ability of parents to choose reproductive options for their child, such as ending a pregnancy resulting from a rape. Moreover, the amendment does not include gender reassignment in its examples of protected “reproductive decisions.” The contention that “sex changes” will suddenly have constitutional status is thus a significant stretch.

And contrary to what is claimed by opponents, the amendment will not repeal Ohio’s existing law requiring parental consent for minors seeking abortions. This statute provides that an unemancipated minor must obtain the consent of one parent to obtain an abortion, unless a minor has obtained a court order that an abortion is in her best interests.

The amendment says nothing about this law, and it is unlikely that courts would invalidate parental consent if the amendment passes. In 1990, when Roe was in effect, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Ohio’s parental consent rule. The amendment aims to reinstate the rights that Roe guaranteed                           

Religious Free Exercise of Abortion

Elizabeth Sepper, Free Exercise of Abortion, 49 BYU L. Rev. (2023)  

For too long, religion has been assumed to be in opposition to abortion. Abortions consistent with, motivated by, and compelled from religion have been erased from legal and political discourse. Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, free exercise claims against abortion bans have begun to correct course. Women and faith leaders in several states have filed suit, asserting their religious convictions in favor of abortion. They give form to the reality—as progressive theologians have long argued—that to have a child can be a sacred choice, but not to have a child can also be a sacred choice. And they center women’s conscientious decisions for the first time in many decades.

In law and religion circles, the predominant response has been skepticism. As claims for reproductive freedom have appeared, erstwhile supporters of expansive exemptions propose to raise the bar. They increase standards for religiosity, sow doubts about women’s sincerity, and argue for lightening the government’s burden. Constitutionally illicit stereotypes about women’s (in)capacity for moral agency, trustworthiness, and altruism seep into religious liberty arguments.

These attacks on the free exercise of religious convictions about abortion implicitly—and sometimes expressly—advance religious preferentialism. They invite—and expect—the courts to reject pro-abortion religious claims even as they treat anti-abortion convictions as sacrosanct. The result would be to exile some categories of religious people from religious liberty protections, while Christian conservatives gain systematic favor.

Equally troubling, this debate reveals that scholars and advocates who treat concerns about employee benefit plans and beard length as deserving of unquestioning respect have not considered that a woman’s moral and religious convictions shape—indeed may drive—her reproductive decisions. Yet, reproduction and religion are linked in the lives of many Americans. The central issues of reproductive freedom–how to constitute a family, whether to bear children, how to define marriage, and how to raise children—are fundamental to religious liberty, especially for those whose bodies and souls bear the burdens of pregnancy, labor, and motherhood. A religious liberty doctrine that fails to recognize this reality would instead make women of reproductive age strangers to free exercise.

The Implications of Dobbs to the Fundamental Rights of Family Privacy

Rona Kaufman Kitchen, Privacy: Pre- and Post-Dobbs, 61 Duquesne U. L. Rev. (2023)  

The United States Supreme Court has interpreted the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to include a fundamental right to familial privacy. The exact contours of that right were developed by the Court from 1923 until 2015. In 2022, with its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, the Supreme Court abruptly changed course and held that the right to terminate a pregnancy is no longer part of the right to privacy previously recognized by the Court. This essay seeks to place Dobbs in the context of the Court’s family privacy cases in an effort to understand the Court’s reasoning and the impact the decision may have in the future.

Change in OH Ballot Language May Have a Big Effect on Support for Issue 1 Reproductive Freedom Constitutional Amendment

Change in Ballot Language May Have a Big Effect on Support for Issue 1 (OH Reproductive Freedom Amendment)

Advocates for Issue 1 were angered that the summary language facing voters at the ballot box was altered to include the phrase “unborn child” rather than the original language of “fetal viability.” To examine what effect this may have on support for Issue 1, we asked half of our respondents about their support with the original ballot language and half with the language now appearing on the ballot. We find majority support for both versions of Issue 1, albeit with 52% agreeing with the current ballot language and 68% agreeing with the original ballot language.
 
Much of the difference in support can be found among Republicans and Independents who are more supportive of the original language and less supportive of the current ballot language. Democrats show almost universal support for both versions (87% for each). Likewise, men are much more likely to support the original version of Issue 1, whereas women demonstrate little change in support for either version of Issue 1 (68% and 63%, respectively). The margins of error are appreciably higher for these specific questions because we split our sample to test the effects of the change in ballot language, so results should be taken with caution. Nonetheless, the change in ballot language will likely have an effect on the level of support for Issue 1.

Here is the initiative language endorsed by the petition signatories:

1. Every individual has a right to make and carry out one's own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one's own pregnancy, miscarriage care, and abortion.
2. The State shall not, directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against either an individual's voluntary exercise of this right or a person or entity that assists an individual exercising this right, unless the State demonstrates that it is using the least restrictive means to advance the individual's health in accordance with widely accepted and evidence-based standards of care.
3. However, abortion may be prohibited after fetal viability. But in no case may such an abortion be prohibited if in the professional judgment of the pregnant patient's treating physician it is necessary to protect the pregnant patient's life or health.
4. As used in this Section, "Fetal viability" means "the point in a pregnancy when, in the professional judgment of the pregnant patient's treating physician, the fetus has a significant likelihood of survival outside the uterus with reasonable measures. This is determined on a case-by-case basis"; and "State" includes any governmental entity and political subdivision.
5. This Section is self-executing.

Here is the ballot language rephrased by state officials:

        The proposed amendment would:

• Establish in the Constitution of the State of Ohio an individual right to one's own reproductive medical treatment, including but not limited to abortion;
• Create legal protections for any person or entity that assists a person with receiving reproductive medical treatment, including but not limited to abortion;
• Prohibit the State from directly or indirectly burdening, penalizing, or prohibiting abortion before an unborn child is determined to be viable, unless the State demonstrates that it is using the least restrictive means;
• Grant a pregnant woman's treating physician the authority to determine, on a case-by-case basis, whether an unborn child is viable;
• Only allow the State to prohibit an abortion after an unborn child is determined by a pregnant woman's treating physician to be viable and only if the physician does not consider the abortion necessary to protect the pregnant woman's life or health; and
• Always allow an unborn child to be aborted at any stage of pregnancy, regardless of viability if, in the treating physician's determination, the abortion is necessary to protect the pregnant woman's life or health.

This changed ballot language was upheld by the Ohio Supreme Court. Ohioans for Reproductive Rights v. Ohio Ballot Board (Sept. 19, 2023)

Combined with the Ohio Attorney General's Opinion on Issue 1, an unusual and misleading "neutral" opinion on the interpretation and implications of the amendment, the misinformation and misunderstanding of the amendment is making a big impact on passage.

Malinda L. Seymore on "Social Costs of Dobbs' Pro-Adoption Agenda"

Malinda L. Seymore has posted Social Costs of Dobbs' Pro-Adoption Agenda on SSRN. This article is forthcoming in volume 57 of the U.C. Davis Law Review in 2023. Here is an excerpt from the abstract. 

Abortion opponents have long claimed that women denied access to abortion can simply give their children up for adoption. * * * Of course, this claim assumes away the burdens of the pregnancy itself, which can result in economic strife, domestic violence, health risks, and potentially death in childbirth. But even on its own terms, the argument that adoption is an adequate substitute for abortion access makes normative assumptions about adoption as a social good in and of itself, ignoring the social costs of adoption for birth parents and adoptees. Idealizing adoption then influences decisions about what constitutes a valid adoption, with courts minimizing the requirements for voluntary consent. In a new post-Roe landscape that narrows choices for those facing an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy, what reforms are necessary to ensure that birth parents are not coerced into adoptions they do not want?

First, this Article looks to patterns of adoption placement before and after Roe v. Wade legalized abortion, and relies on newly available empirical data since Dobbs, to paint a picture of the adoption landscape in a post-Roe world. It concludes that the Dobbs ruling will not appreciably increase the “domestic supply of infants” for adoption . . . . Second, drawing upon insights from psychosocial literature the Article explains how pregnant persons make the decision about adoption, who relinquishes for adoption, and the salience of abortion to that decision; thus informing our understanding of laws and practices of consent in adoption. Third, the Article outlines many of the potentially coercive tactics that have been employed by adoption professionals to persuade birth parents to relinquish their constitutionally-protected parental rights, including high-tech targeting ofpotential birth parents, the use of crisis pregnancy centers to steer pregnant persons to adoption, manipulating the emotional stress of pregnancy to procure consent, and taking advantage of the duress of circumstances of poverty. Fourth, the Article proposes reforms to adoption that give enhanced meaning to the requirement of consent: increased regulation of adoption agencies, independent options counseling, recognition of duress of circumstances as vitiating consent, greater procedural protection to include appointment of counsel, and judicial education about the realities of adoption.

Regulating the Substantive Gender Inequalities of Artificial Intelligence

Rosel Kim & Kristen Thomasen, Submission to The Standing Committee on Industry and Technology on Bill C-27, An Act to enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act, the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act and the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts 

While AI has been touted by industry as an innovative tool that will yield benefits for the public, examining the impact of AI from a substantive equality perspective reveals profound harms. As a leading national organization with a mandate to advance substantive gender equality, LEAF urges the government to centre substantive equality and human rights as the guiding principles when regulating the growing use of AI. With this goal in mind, LEAF submits that the scope of AIDA must - at least - be substantially expanded in order to enable regulations that can protect against all present and emerging harms from AI.

New Study Shows that Even With Tenure Women are More Likely to Leave Higher Ed

Chronicle, Even With Tenure, Women Are More Likely to Leave Higher Ed

Across academe, women are more likely to leave their faculty positions than men, and attrition is highest for women who have tenure or work in fields outside of science, technology, engineering, and math, according to a new study.

And even when men and women leave at the same rate, their reasons for doing so are gendered: Early-career women are more likely to leave due to issues with work-life balance, while women later in their careers are more likely to leave because of a hostile work environment. Men tend to cite professional reasons, such as a lack of resources or support.***

Women were more likely to leave their faculty roles than men at every career stage, and the gap grew wider at the top of the ladder. At the assistant-professor level, women were 6 percent more likely to leave than men. Among full professors, that figure was 19 percent.

Tenured faculty leaving at the highest rate is surprising, Raj said. But she speculated that women with tenure might be able to transition into other careers more easily than their less-experienced colleagues if the environment drives them out.

Women at less prestigious institutions were also more likely to quit.

Women most often cited issues with workplace climate as their reasons for leaving, such as harassment, dysfunctional department leadership, and feelings of not belonging. Men most often recounted professional reasons for leaving, such as difficulty obtaining funding or poor administrative support.

Previously, research has shown that one of the biggest drivers of inequity between women and men on the faculty is responsibilities at home. Additionally, Raj has observed gender gaps in sponsorship from more senior academics and in service work such as mentoring students.

Study, Science Advances, Gender and Retention Patterns Among US Faculty

Women remain underrepresented among faculty in nearly all academic fields. Using a census of 245,270 tenure-track and tenured professors at United States–based PhD-granting departments, we show that women leave academia overall at higher rates than men at every career age, in large part because of strongly gendered attrition at lower-prestige institutions, in non-STEM fields, and among tenured faculty. A large-scale survey of the same faculty indicates that the reasons faculty leave are gendered, even for institutions, fields, and career ages in which retention rates are not. Women are more likely than men to feel pushed from their jobs and less likely to feel pulled toward better opportunities, and women leave or consider leaving because of workplace climate more often than work-life balance. These results quantify the systemic nature of gendered faculty retention; contextualize its relationship with career age, institutional prestige, and field; and highlight the importance of understanding the gendered reasons for attrition rather than focusing on rates alone.

Gender, Health and the Constitution Conference at the Center for Con Law at Akron

 

Con Law Conference Focuses on Gender, Health & the Constitution

The Center for Constitutional Law at The University of Akron School of Law held its annual conference on Oct. 13. This year’s theme was Gender, Health and the Constitution. The Center is one of four national resource centers established by Congress, along with Drake University, Howard University and the University of South Carolina, to support research and public education on issues of constitutional law. It includes five faculty fellows, student fellowships, a J.D. certificate program and an online journal, ConLawNOW.

“Speakers at this year’s conference all agreed on the need for attention to these issues of gender discrimination in the health care context,” said Akron Law Professor and Con Law Center Director Tracy Thomas. “The 20 featured panelists included national scholars and local practitioners in both law and medicine who provided a broad range of expertise from theoretical to practical implications.”

Those attending the conference included judges, attorneys, academics, students and members of the community interested in learning more about these emerging issues. Akron Law faculty Bernadette Bollas Genetin, Mike Gentithes, Dr. George Horvath and Brant Lee moderated the panels.

The first topic was reproductive rights and the profound legal and medical changes since the U.S. Supreme Court’s invalidation of the long-recognized fundamental right to reproductive choice. Maya Manian, director of the Health Law and Policy Program at American University, recommended a new theoretical approach grounded in health justice. Dr. Allison Kreiner, medical analyst with Plakas Mannos, revealed the stark detriment of the invalidation to patients in practice. Legal scholars Naomi Cahn from the University of Virginia, Tiffany Graham from Touro Law and Sonja Sutter from George Washington University discussed applications in the contexts of minors’ rights and assisted reproduction.

 The second panel turned to the topic of gender identity. Panelists spoke about recent bans on gender-affirming care, the history and meaning of gender identity, and new laws prohibiting transgender girls from participating in sports. Noted national legal scholars speaking on gender identity included Deborah Brake from the University of Pittsburgh, Noa Ben-Asher from St. John’s University, Jennifer Bard from the University of Cincinnati, Susan Keller from Western State University and Dara Purvis from Penn State University.

 The next panel discussion focused on bias in medical science and the ways in which medical science excludes women in research, resulting in significant negative physical effects. Panelists diagnosed existing problems and suggested preventive measures. These legal experts on medical science included former Akron Law Professor Jane Moriarty, now at Duquesne University; Jennifer Oliva from Indiana University; and Aziza Ahmed from Boston University. Dr. Rachel Bracken from Northeast Ohio Medical University also presented.

The final panel of the day focused on the broader meanings and implications of medical autonomy. Professor Thomas discussed Ohio’s unique health care freedom constitutional amendment and how it might apply to reproductive freedom. Abby Moncrieff, co-director of the Health Law Center at Cleveland State University, considered the theoretical neutrality bases of medical autonomy and how they applied to several of the emerging legal issues discussed at the conference, including gender-affirming care and reproductive rights. Attorneys Marie Curry from Legal Aid and Megan Franz Oldham ’05, partner at Plakas Mannos, discussed how these issues from daily medical practice. Oldham addressed how medical malpractice claims arise when physicians discount women patient’s reported symptoms. Curry shared information about racial impacts and discrimination in pregnancy care, and alternative patient-centered approaches to redress these concerns.

 Many papers presented at the conference will be published in the Spring symposium of ConLawNOW.

Call for Guest Bloggers at Gender and the Law Blog

The Gender and the Law Blog, a member of the national Law Professor Blog Network, invites faculty and practitioners to guest blog on the site. We are seeking original content blog posts that address an area of research or analysis of an emerging issue. Posts generally range from 600-1000 words. To submit a proposed post, please send your manuscript to Prof. Tracy Thomas @[email protected].  

Women in Iceland Go on Strike Against Gender Inequality

NYT, Women in Iceland Go on Strike Against Gender Inequality

Tens of thousands of women and nonbinary people in Iceland were expected to join a one-day strike on Tuesday, which organizers called the country’s largest effort to protest workplace inequality in nearly five decades.

Iceland is a global leader in gender equality but still has a long way to go, said Freyja Steingrímsdóttir, a spokeswoman for the Icelandic Federation of Public Workers, the country’s largest federation of public worker unions.

“Iceland is often viewed as some sort of equality paradise,” Ms. Steingrímsdóttir, an organizer of the strike, said. “If we’re going to live up to that name, we need to move forward and really be the best we can be — and we’re not stopping until full gender equality is reached.”

Organizers urged women and nonbinary people to stop all work on Tuesday, including household errands and child care. Even Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir said she would take part, telling local news media that she would not call a cabinet meeting and that she expected other women in the cabinet to strike.

Alabama Woman Files Civil Suit After Being Forced to Give Birth in a Jail Shower

An Alabama woman has sued county officials after she gave birth in a jail shower while detained. The complaint alleges the following: 

For almost the entirety of Ms. Caswell’s high-risk pregnancy, which she spent behind bars, ECDC staff continuously exhibited callous indifference toward Ms. Caswell’s pregnancy-related medical needs. Jail staff ignored her requests for regular prenatal care, refused to provide her with access to her critical mental-health prescription medications, and even denied her basic accommodations, forcing her to sleep on a thin mat on a concrete floor. This ongoing mistreatment culminated on October 16, 2021, the day of her delivery. Although Ms. Caswell was obviously in painful labor, ECDC staff refused to transport her to the hospital. Instead, ECDC staff forced Ms. Caswell to endure nearly 12 hours of unmedicated labor alone in a jail cell and ignored her cries of pain and repeated pleas for assistance. Ms. Caswell ultimately had no choice but to deliver her baby unassisted—not in a hospital or even ECDC’s medical unit—but in a jail shower room. Ms. Caswell suffered excruciating pain and a placental abruption that almost led to her death. After Ms. Caswell delivered, ECDC staff looked on as she lay on the floor bleeding. Instead of attending to Ms. Caswell, ECDC staff took pictures with her newborn baby while the umbilical cord was still connected to Ms. Caswell.  

The complaint further suggets that these issues are more systemic in Etowah County: 

Etowah County subjects more pregnant and postpartum women per capita to criminal prosecution and pretrial incarceration for pregnancy-related charges than any other large county in Alabama or throughout the United States. Between 2015 and 2023, Etowah County arrested at least 257 pregnant women and new mothers. Accordingly, it was foreseeable and plainly obvious that Defendants would need to attend to the medical needs of pregnant and postpartum women, yet Defendants developed a persistent policy, custom, and practice of doing precisely the opposite.

Indeed, Ms. Caswell’s experience, shocking as it is, is not an isolated event. There is a persistent and widespread history, custom, and practice at ECDC of denying, delaying, or providing plainly inadequate medical care to detained individuals who are pregnant or postpartum in the face of serious and obvious medical needs. In recent years, Defendants’ conduct has resulted in many other pregnant women at ECDC receiving grossly inadequate pre- and postpartum care, or, in many instances, no care at all. Ms. Caswell herself experienced callous indifference to her medical needs at ECDC during an earlier pregnancy in 2019. ECDC staff has denied medical care to numerous other women with serious and obvious medical needs similar to Ms. Caswell’s while they were pregnant or postpartum, including denial of adequate prenatal care, refusal to provide prescribed medications, refusal to provide access to external medical providers even in the face of emergency medical issues such as ongoing labor and delivery, refusal to provide beds and other basic living necessities for pregnant and postpartum women, and denial of proper postpartum care, including provision of a breast pump. This pattern of deficient care has resulted in grievous harm, including at least one stillbirth. 

The complaint alleges that defendants violated plaintiff's rights under the Fourteenth Amendment by deliberate indifference to serious medical needs. It also alleges negligence, and Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress claims.  

You can read the full complaint here. 

National Academies Hosting Event on Legal Aftermath of Dobbs at the State Level

On October 27, 2023, at 12:00 EST, the Standing Committee on Reproductive Health, Equity, and Society within the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and will host a public webinar on "legal strategies employed at the state level and their impact on the science of and access to reproductive health following the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization verdict."

Speakers include: 

• Ellen Wright Clayton, Craig-Weaver Professor of Pediatrics, Professor of Law, Professor of Health Policy, Vanderbilt University
• Joia Crear-Perry, Founder and President, National Birth Equity Collaborative
• Jessie Hill, Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development and Judge Ben C. Green Professor of Law, Case Western Reserve University 
• Fran Linkin, Director of Research, Reproductive Rights, Six State Innovation Exchange
• Laurie Sobel, Associate Director, Women's Health Policy, KFF.

Following  the event, a "proceedings-in-brief will be produced by a designated rapporteur."  You can register here. 

Gender Parity and Constitutionalism in Chile

Rosalind Dixon & Marcela Prieto Rudolphy, Parity Constitutionalism, Global Constitutionalism, Forthcoming

"Never again without us", the Chilean feminist movement demanded of the constitution-making process. This demand for remedying women's historical exclusion from constitution-making ultimately translated to gender parity in the composition of the Chilean constitutional assembly. However, the constitutional draft, which included many gender-related norms, was rejected by Chileans in the exit referendum. In this article, we argue that although gender parity in constitution-making has promise and, like in the Chilean case, can be linked to substantive outcomes in terms of gender rights enshrined in the constitutional text, without political representation that is embedded in a broader party structure, those promises may fail to materialize.

California Passes New Reproductive Loss Leave Law

California Establishes New Leave for Reproductive Loss

On Oct. 11, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law allowing for up to five days of time off work for reproductive-related losses.

Senate Bill 848 makes it an unlawful employment practice for an employer to refuse to grant an eligible employee's request to take up to five days of unpaid leave following a reproductive loss event.

Previously, California law required employers to provide bereavement leave upon the death of an employee's family member. Reproductive-related losses, however, largely remained unaddressed. Such losses are a common occurrence with more than 1 in 4 pregnancies resulting in miscarriage, and they may result in post-traumatic stress disorder (with almost 1 in 3 women developing pos-traumatic stress disorder after a miscarriage).

What Does this New Leave Require?

SB 848 acts as a subset of California's bereavement leave law and increases an employee's leave entitlements for a reproductive loss event, which is defined as "the day or, for a multiple-day event, the final day of a failed adoption, failed surrogacy, miscarriage, stillbirth, or an unsuccessful assisted reproduction." Covered employers must provide up to five days of leave for reproductive loss events.

The law limits the amount of reproductive loss leave to a maximum of 20 days within a 12-month period.  Thus, although an employee may be subject to multiple reproductive loss events in a 12-month period, an employer is not required to provide more than 20 days of reproductive loss leave.

Like many other California leave laws, SB 848 prohibits employers from retaliating against any employee for requesting or taking leave for a reproductive loss.

California employers with five or more employees are covered under the law

Domestic Violence and the Functional Parent Doctrines

Courtney Joslin & Douglas NeJaime, Domestic Violence and Functional Parent Doctrines, 30 Virginia J. Soc. Pol'y & Law 67 (2023)  

Today, approximately two-thirds of the states have a functional parent doctrine. Under these doctrines, a court can extend parental rights based on the conduct of forming a parental relationship with a child, regardless of whether the person is the child’s biological or adoptive parent. In recent years, these functional parent doctrines have garnered significant attention. Some critics fear that perpetrators of domestic violence will misuse functional parent doctrines to abuse, harass, and coerce their victims. These critics often imagine a paradigmatic case — one involving a former nonmarital different-sex partner who has a limited relationship with the child and uses the doctrine in a post-dissolution custody action as a way to continue to harass and control his former partner, the child’s mother.

Drawing upon relevant findings from our empirical study of all electronically available decisions issued in the last forty years applying functional parent doctrines, this Article sheds light on these fears by reporting what we know about allegations of domestic violence in cases decided under these doctrines. Ultimately, our findings reveal that the paradigmatic case that critics envision is quite rare. Former nonmarital different-sex partners constitute only a small share of the functional parent claim-ants. Instead, the population of claimants is characterized by diversity. Indeed, our study includes more than twice as many relatives — a group routinely overlooked in conversations about functional parent doctrines — than different-sex nonmarital partners. Even as allegations of domestic violence are more common in cases involving intimate partners, they are hardly a common feature. Moreover, even the small share of cases that would seem to be of most concern — those involving allegations of domestic violence against only the functional parent — rarely present the straightforward facts that structure objections to functional parent doctrines.

Rather than finding that functional parent doctrines are routinely used in ways that disrupt children’s lives, we find that the doctrines often function to provide stability and security for children. Our account raises questions about opposing functional parent doctrines altogether based on fears that male ex-partners will use the doctrines for abusive ends. Instead, given the important benefits of functional parent doctrines for children, we conclude that concerns about domestic violence, which are in-disputably serious and must be taken into consideration, should be addressed within functional parent doctrines, as some states recently have done.

Deep Disagreements in the Last Five Years of Equality Jurisprudence at the Supreme Court of Canada

Jennifer Koshan & Jonnette Watson Hamilton, "'Clarifications' or 'Wholesale Revisions'? The Last Five Years of Equality Jurisprudence at the Supreme Court of Canada" (2023) Supreme Court Law Review (Forthcoming)
Presented at the Asper Centre's Litigating Equality Symposium at the University of Toronto in May 2023

Over the past five years, the Supreme Court of Canada’s equality jurisprudence under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has revealed deep disagreements within the Court. This paper reviews the six decisions that comprise that jurisprudence, drawing out the major points of contention on the role of substantive equality, the test for section 15(1), adverse effects discrimination, causation, evidence, contextualization, and positive obligations. Our argument is that while the section 15 majorities in the first three decisions – Alliance, Centrale, and Fraser – attempted to respond to the critiques of equality-seeking groups, these decisions could not paper over the profoundly ideological disagreements embedded in equality rights jurisprudence, particularly in cases of systemic discrimination. In light of the recent push-back by a significant proportion of the Court in R v CP and a majority in Sharma, we also discuss the implications of the six decisions for equality-promoting litigation strategies going forward.

A Theory of Perversity as an Outer Bound of Rational Basis Review

Professor Boone's theory discussed, and then applied to the contexts of abstinence-only sex education, mandatory arrest laws in domestic violence, and targeted regulation of abortion providers.

Meghan Boone, Perverse & Irrational, 16 Harv. Law & Policy Rev. (2022)  

In our system of representative democracy, legislatures are given a great deal of latitude to select and pass laws that they deem to be in the public interest. Assuming that no suspect class or fundamental right is involved, the Constitution has been interpreted to only require legislative action to satisfy rational basis review—a highly deferential standard that requires only that a legitimate purpose exist and the means adopted to achieve that purpose are rationally related to that purpose. Under rational basis review, legislatures can and do enact laws that are significantly over- or underinclusive to the identified problem. They can enact laws that do not even accomplish their intended purpose in most instances. They can even enact laws which are unsupported by any evidence, much less high-quality evidence. And yet . . . courts insist that rational basis review still means something. That it is something other than a blank check for legislatures to do as they will.

This Article explores one example of the outer bounds of rationality—demonstrated perversity. That is, a law that clearly contravenes the overarching legislative intent because the law is solely or primarily responsible for producing the opposite result of that intent. Although often unnamed as such, perversity presents itself across the legislative landscape, from mundane local ordinances to sweeping federal legislation. And while not explicitly recognized as a basis for finding a law unconstitutional, Supreme Court precedent clearly hints at the possibility that demonstrated perversity could be a basis for invalidating laws.

By defining perversity, identifying when and how it occurs, and exploring how it might be used to challenge the constitutionality of various government actions, this Article aims to illuminate an undertheorized corner of the already robust literature on rational basis review. It argues that current rational basis review precedent already employs a type of perversity analysis, although courts fail to explicitly acknowledge it as such. Moreover, it argues that modern changes in scientific and empirical methodologies and the explosion of the information economy demonstrate the need for this type of analysis; without it, rational basis review is meaningless. Ultimately, the Article concludes that while rational basis scrutiny gives legislatures wide latitude, courts must set a constitutional limit by striking down statutes which cause outcomes clearly counterproductive to legislative goals.

Reconstructing the Myth of the Perfect Victim in Rape Crimes Through the Use of Experts

Deborah Tuerkheimer, Victim, Reconstructed: Sex Crimes Experts and the New Rape Paradigm, U. Illinois L. Rev. (forthcoming)  

The “perfect victim” embodies enduring misconceptions about how victims behave during and in the wake of sexual violence. However misguided, these myths are sufficiently pervasive to pass for common sense—the same common sense that jurors in sex crimes trials are instructed to deploy when judging the credibility of accusers. One obvious corrective is expert testimony. But expertise in rape cases has mostly been anchored to an odd syndrome—the “rape trauma syndrome,” which, quite apart from its questionable scientific underpinnings, suffers from two conceptual defects: the syndrome individualizes the structural, and it pathologizes the normal. As #MeToo has brought into sharp focus, sexual violence is not aberrant; nor is it possible to abstract rape and its aftermath from a social context defined by steep social hierarchies. Expert testimony should account for these realities, reconstructing the victim accordingly. This move can reverberate beyond rape trials to other parts of the criminal justice system and—most urgently—to the cultural realm, where quotidian credibility judgments dictate the path forward for countless survivors. The paradigm that emerges promises to upend entrenched understandings of who counts as a victim and what constitutes rape.

Understanding Ohio's Constitutional Amendment for Reproductive Rights

A state constitutional amendment for reproductive freedom is on the ballot in Ohio. The "Right to Reproductive Freedom and Protections for Health and Safety" Amendment essentially restores the legal standard of Roe v. Wade of recognizing a fundamental right of reproductive choice and subjecting regulations to strict scrutiny and the least restrictive means. It does eliminate the undue burden standard of Casey, restoring the regular direct and indirect burden standard for infringements of fundamental rights generally. The Ohio amendment expressly allows prohibition of abortion after fetal viability, with an exception for the life and health of the pregnant person, thus restoring the balanced result of Roe. This seems to be a reasonable approach to abortion regulation matching what polls suggest is the view shared by a majority of people.  Yet the political opposition has centered on parents' rights, gender-affirming care, sex trafficking, and the alleged "exclusive scrutiny" of the proposal. 

Here is the amendment language:

1. Every individual has a right to make and carry out one's own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one's own pregnancy, miscarriage care, and abortion.
2. The State shall not, directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against either an individual's voluntary exercise of this right or a person or entity that assists an individual exercising this right, unless the State demonstrates that it is using the least restrictive means to advance the individual's health in accordance with widely accepted and evidence-based standards of care.
3. However, abortion may be prohibited after fetal viability. But in no case may such an abortion be prohibited if in the professional judgment of the pregnant patient's treating physician it is necessary to protect the pregnant patient's life or health.
4. As used in this Section, "Fetal viability" means "the point in a pregnancy when, in the professional judgment of the pregnant patient's treating physician, the fetus has a significant likelihood of survival outside the uterus with reasonable measures. This is determined on a case-by-case basis"; and "State" includes any governmental entity and political subdivision.
5. This Section is self-executing.

This is what voters will see on the ballot:

    The proposed amendment would:

• Establish in the Constitution of the State of Ohio an individual right to one's own reproductive medical treatment, including but not limited to abortion;
• Create legal protections for any person or entity that assists a person with receiving reproductive medical treatment, including but not limited to abortion;
• Prohibit the State from directly or indirectly burdening, penalizing, or prohibiting abortion before an unborn child is determined to be viable, unless the State demonstrates that it is using the least restrictive means;
• Grant a pregnant woman's treating physician the authority to determine, on a case-by-case basis, whether an unborn child is viable;
• Only allow the State to prohibit an abortion after an unborn child is determined by a pregnant woman's treating physician to be viable and only if the physician does not consider the abortion necessary to protect the pregnant woman's life or health; and
• Always allow an unborn child to be aborted at any stage of pregnancy, regardless of viability if, in the treating physician's determination, the abortion is necessary to protect the pregnant woman's life or health.

The Ohio Supreme Court upheld this rewritten "summary" of the proposed amendment, with only minor changes. State ex rel Ohioans for Reproductive Rights v. Ohio Ballot Board, Ohio S.Ct. (Sept. 19, 2023)

The Ohio Attorney General took the unusual step of issuing a legal opinion said to explain rather than advocate for the amendment. Issue 1: A Legal Analysis by the Ohio Attorney General

One year ago, a trial court in Preterm Cleveland v. Yost, invalidated the state's six-week abortion ban on grounds that it violated the state constitutional rights of liberty, privacy, and health care freedom. Ohio is one of four states that has a unique health care freedom amendment protecting the right of choice in health care decisions. It was passed as a challenge to the federal health care insurance mandate to affirm the individual right to choice in health care decisions and health care insurance. The insurance provision is preempted by the federal health care statute. The Preterm Cleveland court granted a TRO and then preliminary injunction staying enforcement of the ban. The government appealed the injunction and oral arguments were held last week. But the appeal is limited to the questions of 1) whether the order is a final appealable order that the government can appeal at this preliminary stage, and 2) whether the providers have standing. The Ohio Supreme Court did not grant cert on the merits of the constitutional question.

For more on the Ohio Reproductive Freedom Amendment, see:

Susan Tebben, Long-fought Abortion Battle in OH Could End in Amendment of Six-Week Ban

Julie Carr Smyth & Christine Fernando, AP, An Ohio Ballot Measure Seeks to Protect Abortion Access. Opponents' Messaging is on Parental Rights.

Jo Ingles, Ohio Voters Will Decide a Constitutional Amendment on Abortion. Here's What You Need to Know.

Valerie Richardson, Wash Times, Parental Rights Take Center Stage in Ohio's Ballot Battle Over Abortion

Christine Fernando & Ali Swenson, AP, Ohio Votes on Abortion Rights this Fall. Misinformation is Spreading.

Susan Tebben, Ohio Issue 1 Attacks on Parental Rights Do Not Appear in Amendment, Ohio Capital J.

Eric Heisig, Ohio Case Pits State Against Doctors Suing to Treat Patients