Reproductive Rights Prof Blog

Nearly seven percent of U.S. women say first sexual experience was forced

Sept. 16, 2019 (AP News): Many U.S. women say first sexual experience was forced in teens, by Lindsey Tanner: 

A new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine reports that "the first sexual experience for 1 in 16 U.S. women was forced or coerced intercourse in their early teens"--and often perpetrated by persons nearly a decade senior to the survivors.

The national survey conducted for the study did not use the term rape when asking participants about forced sexual experiences but identified a first sexual intercourse experience as "involuntary." Almost half of the participants who reported involuntary intercourse were physically held down during the experience, while just over half of the same respondents described being "verbally pressured to have sex against their will." 

The lead author of the study, Dr. Laura Hawks, affirms that “any sexual encounter (with penetration) that occurs against somebody’s will is rape. If somebody is verbally pressured into having sex, it’s just as much rape."

The study goes on to show that persons whose first sexual intercourse experiences amounted to rape reported "fair or poor health" twice as often as other women. The same women also "had more sex partners, unwanted pregnancies and abortions, and more reproductive health problems including pelvic pain and menstrual irregularities than women whose first sexual experience wasn’t forced."

The new study adds to the findings of prior research that identified a range of long-term effects of sexual assault, including "social isolation, feelings of powerlessness, stigmatization, poor self-image and risky behavior, which all may increase risks for depression and other mental health problems"

An editorial in this issue of the Journal "notes that the study lacks information on women’s health and any abuse before their first sexual encounter." It also doesn't include data on sexual violence after the women's first encounters, which, the editorial notes, may further "contribute to health problems."

The Journal calls for further research to fully understand and address the "range and consequences," particularly as related to long-term health outcomes, of sexual assault on survivors. 

Sex education specialists have responded emphasizing the need for inclusive education in U.S. schools that teaches children about consent among other healthy sexual practices. 

Telemedicine Abortion is Safe

July 23, 2019 (Rewire.News): Telemedicine Abortion is Safe, No Matter What Anti-Choice Lawmakers Claim, by Auditi Guha: 

A study released July 9 finds that outcomes for medication-driven abortion through telemedicine are comparable in-person medication abortion.

The results support the importance of telemedicine for reproductive health and safety particularly for those who cannot easily reach abortion clinics due to oppressively-restrictive anti-choice legislation. 

Medication abortion has been legal in the United States for nearly twenty years and is supported by the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists, National Abortion Federation, and Planned Parenthood. The procedure uses a combination of mifepristone and misoprostol pills and the telemedicine aspect helps clinicians have a wider reach in authorizing and supervising the process through remote video conferencing.

Telemedicine medication abortions have often been provided in clinics where the licensed clinicians video conference in while the patient is in clinic with nurses or other professionals, but direct-to-patient telemedicine abortion services are growing. Most patients requesting these services live in abortion-hostile states where they cannot easily reach a clinic at all.

The anti-choice movement has responded by working to restrict access to telemedicine abortion as well as in-clinic abortion services. Legal bans or restrictions currently exist in Arkansas, Idaho, Mississippi, and Utah. 

The recent study, though, "indicates that telemedicine abortion is 'a safe and effective way of ending an early pregnancy, with very rare complications' and can provide the same quality of health care patients receive at a health center," according to Dr. Julia Kohn, national director of research at Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the lead author of the study.

Kohn further says: "In many ways, this study does reaffirm what we already know: Medication abortion via telemedicine is safe and effective at ending an early pregnancy."

Vaginal exams on unconscious, non-consenting patients are legal in 42 states

Jun. 26, 2019 (Vice): Med Students Are Doing Vaginal Exams on Unconscious, Non-Consenting Patients, by Hannah Harris Green: 

For decades, medical students around the country have been expected to perform pelvic exams on unconscious women--not for the patient's benefit but solely for the student's experience. Sometimes these exams are performed multiple times by different students on the same patient. The exams involve a student inserting "two gloved fingers into the patient’s vagina and [placing] one hand on her pelvis in order to feel the uterus and ovaries." This patient is never asked for consent prior to the procedure nor is she informed of the exam afterward.

One former student--now a pediatrician in Baltimore, Maryland--learned of these procedures during his OB/GYN rotation while studying at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School in the 1990s. He refused to participate, joining in a movement to ban the practice. Ari Silver-Isenstadt took a year out of his medical studies to study the ethical implications of this practice at Penn's School of Education. He subsequently published a study in 2003 in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology that found that over 90 percent of students at the five Pennsylvania medical schools he had focused on had performed vaginal exams on non-consenting, unconscious patients. He noted that students' initial discomfort with the procedure quickly dissipated as it became a regular part of their rotations. 

California became the first state to ban these invasive exams in 2003, the same year of Silver-Isenstadt's study. Since then, Illinois, Virginia, Oregon, Hawaii, Iowa, Utah, and Maryland have followed suit. Additional states that have introduced similar legislation this year include Connecticut, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, Washington, and Texas. No federal legislation yet addresses the issue. 

Some medical schools have also banned the practice institutionally as well--like Harvard--but others, including Duke University, consistently ask their medical students to perform pelvic exams sans consent throughout their education. 

While the procedure invades the privacy of any patient, consequences can be particularly severe for patients with a history of sexual trauma who either find out a pelvic exam was performed on them while unconscious or else wake up during the produce, as did Ashely Weitz in 2007.

Weitz said testifying about her experience in support of Utah's law in February was nerve-racking, especially because she expected there to be other women at the hearing at the state house with similar experiences, but she was the only one. Given the nature of these exams, people don’t know if it's happened to them. She said it was “a very healing practice to say 'this shouldn't happen to me, it shouldn't be happening in the way that it is happening in an institution.'” But there are still parts of the incident that she hasn’t recovered from. “It changed the way that I sought and received medical care,” she said. “I was, you know, thereafter very certain that I was never going to be sedated or unconscious in a manner that would have allowed that situation to happen again. So it was in itself very traumatizing.”

Utah's ban on unconscious pelvic exams was signed into law in March of this year. It requires both medical students and doctors to get explicit consent to perform such exams on anesthetized women. A law professor at the University of Illinois, Robin Fretwell Wilson, credited Weitz's testimony as the primary driving force behind the state legislation. 

Wilson herself advocates for requiring specific consent for any pelvic exams. While opponents to legislation requiring consent argue that general consent forms signed upon entering a teaching hospital already cover these exams, Wilson and other advocates for patient protections assert that it is ethically wrong to practice procedures that are of no benefit to the patient without direct consent.

Many advocates, including Weitz, connect the growing opposition to these vaginal exams to the rising tide of the #MeToo movement in recent years. "The #MeToo movement has helped people like Weitz better understand that the violations they endure are part of a wider cultural problem."

Wilson acknowledges that even 10 or 15 years ago, the attitude toward this practice was completely different. "At the time, medical school faculty 'were more than willing to stand their ground and say, "not only do we do it, but the patients in our hospitals have a duty to participate."' . . .  15 years ago, many schools 'did not see it as an issue.'"

Advocates of legal regulations requiring patient consent, though, still fear that enforcement of the new laws will be difficult. "In order for authorities to find out, students would need to both be aware of the law and willing to report wrongdoing by their supervisors, so [Silver-Isenstadt is] hoping the culture is what will ultimately change."

Women--and Robust Reproductive Rights--Are Key to Solving Climate Crisis

Sierra (Sept. 18, 2018): Climate Activists Say Women Are Key to Solving the Climate Crisis, by Wendy Becktold: 

Last week, San Francisco hosted the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS). The three-day conference brought together heads of state, policy makers, scientists, and leaders from civil society to discuss clean energy and averting catastrophic climate change. One of the recurring topics focused on the necessity of investing in women's rights, including sexual and reproductive rights, in combating climate crises. 

Decades of research indicate that investing in women's rights can dramatically contribute to addressing both development and climate challenges around the globe. In particular, access to education and robust reproductive rights strengthens opportunities for women worldwide. Supporting women is proven to translate to more sustainable development including the promotion of clean energy over fossil fuels.

"Access to reproductive health services is...key to reducing pressure on natural resources." A lack of access to contraception, for example, leads to many millions of unplanned pregnancies, which in turn can prevent women from creating the productive and sustainable systems they would otherwise be able to contribute to. Better education can also reduce birth rates and further improve the livelihood of women around the world.

In poorer parts of the world, women produce 60-80 percent of food crops. Providing women with better education and resources such as access to small business loans (like their male counterparts often have) could could reduce the number of people who go hungry around the world by 150 million. 

Many summit conversations at the conference, in addition to countless side events, highlighted the shared frustrations of women around the world.

Some climate activists found the summit’s emphasis on high tech solutions exasperating. 'There’s often a focus on techno fixes,' said Burns [of the Women’s Environment and Development Organization], 'when for years, we’ve been saying that investing in women’s human rights is how we can address climate change. There is still this huge disconnect between the rhetoric and the solutions that are coming from feminists and frontline voices.'

"Women are also disproportionately affected by climate change," in part because global warming reaches the impoverished first and most people living in poverty are women. 

The conversations at the GCAS highlighted how integral reproductive rights and support of women's opportunities are to innumerable issues. The ripple-effect of guaranteeing sexual and reproductive rights, the research shows, extends far past simply being able to plan a pregnancy; such support builds up communities around the globe, reduces poverty, and has the power to fight behemoth challenges like climate change as well. 

Who gets the embryos? Whoever wants to make them into babies, new law says.

The Washington Post (Jul. 17, 2018): Who gets the embryos? Whoever wants to make them into babies, new law says, by Ariana Eunjung Cha: 

New court cases cases are grappling with the decision of what to do with frozen embryos created during a marriage that later dissolves. In many cases that Cha reports on, the couples chose to create and freeze several embryos in the wake of a cancer diagnosis and treatment schedule that threatened later fertility.

When these same couples faced divorce, there were bitter divides over what should be done with the embryos: one party wanted to maintain "ownership" of the embryos for a future chance at children while the other wanted the embryos destroyed, fearing unwanted future financial or relationship obligations. 

With the number of frozen embryos in the United States soaring into the millions, disputes over who owns them are also on the rise. Judges have often — but not always — ruled in favor of the person who does not want the embryos used, sometimes ordering them destroyed, following the theory that no one should be forced to become a parent.

In Arizona, though, a "first-in-the-nation law" went into effect on July 1 that states "custody of disputed embryos must be given to the party who intends to help them 'develop to birth.'"

The legislation represents for some lawmakers the idea that frozen embryos have their own right to life, and many imagine that the implications could eventually include a delineation of when life begins and a claim to a separate set of embryonic rights of their own as human beings (rather than the discussion being centered on who "owns" the embryos). 

Some groups, like the anti-abortion Thomas More Society, advocate for that embryos to be considered "children" in the legal sense, asking judges to make decisions on disputes based on the best interest of the "child." 

Debates to extend personhood to unborn embryos and fetuses abound in anti-abortion work. Abortion rights advocates are concerned that these discussions could further disintegrate the right to abortion in the United States. "If a days-old embryo in a freezer has a right to life, why not a days-old embryo in utero?"

While judges have historically ordered disputed embryos destroyed based on the wishes of the party who does not want a child, an Arizona judge chose to balance one party's "probable inability to have a child without the embryos" against the other party's "desire to not be a father" a different way. 

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Ronee Korbin Steiner held that Ruby Torres, who wanted the embryos in order to have biological children one day, had no right to them. The judge did not order them destroyed, though, and instead ordered that they go up for donation.

Torres appealed the decision and expects a new ruling any day. 

The new Arizona law that states embryos shall be given to the party who intends to develop them to birth was written in response to this case to "help" people in Torres' situation. It also attempts to recognize the rights of those who do not want the embryos used by providing that those parties would not be liable for child support in the future. 

Both the judicial decisions and the legislation continue to prove extremely controversial:

The Center for Arizona Policy, a conservative lobbying group that has successfully pushed antiabortion legislation in the state, supported the measure, saying the bill would “lead to more consistent rulings.”

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine, which represents doctors, nurses and other professionals who work on fertility issues, opposed the measure, arguing that it would have a profound impact on reproductive medicine.

Medical professionals foresee profound complications to stem-cell research in particular, which relies on embryos donated to science. Such research is believed essential in developing treatments for many diseases and conditions like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. The treatment and storage of embryos as a result of the new legislation will likely make embryonic stem cells much more scarce.

In a friend-of-the-court brief in Torres' pending appellate case, the Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys urged judges in the Arizona Court of Appeals to balance the interest of each former spouse. They argue that the parties claims are not equal and that "the constitutional protection against compulsory parenthood is [generally] greater than any procreative interest in pre-embryos." 

Time will tell both if the appellate judges affirm Judge Steiner's controversial ruling (likely leading to further appeals) while we also wait for the inevitable challenges to Arizona's new embryo law.

Safety of Abortifacients by Mail Focus of Recent Study

New York Times (Nov. 10, 2016):  A Study Tests the Safety of Women Using Abortion Pills Sent by Mail, by Phil Galewitz:

The idea of giving more women access to abortion care by delivering medication through the mail without an in-person visit to a physician is an idea grounded helping women obtain birth control more easily.  "Australia and the Canadian province of British Columbia allow women to get abortion pills by mail after consulting with a physician or other health care provider via phone or the internet. Several international organizations offer mail service in countries where abortion is otherwise unavailable or severely restricted."  There is no such service in the United States.  The Food and Drug Administration prohibits pharmacies from filling prescriptions for the most common medical abortifacient mifepristone.  It must be procured directly from a clinic that stocks the drug.

A research effort permitted by the Food and Drug Administration is being conducted in Hawaii, New York, Oregon and Washington to evaluate the safety of medical abortion by mail.  91% of women surveyed reported that they did not have any complications and would recommend the service to a friend.  Women who use telemedicine and receive abortion medication by mail report a great sense of well being having control over the abortion decision and being able to conduct a medical abortion on their own time and in the privacy of their own home. 

Abortion foes, who have been up in arms about the mail-order medical abortion experiment, have raised a hue and cry over its safety.  Of course, the mail-order alternative does not entirely remove doctors and nurses from the equation.  A woman who wishes to receive abortion medication by mail must first consult with a physician and submit to an ultrasound and blood work.  Follow-up care includes an ultrasound to confirm that the abortion is complete a phone consultation to go over the results.        

Even if the study supports wider access to abortion via telemedicine, nineteen states nonetheless ban the method, requiring a physician to be physically present when consulting with a women on abortion.   

ACLU of Texas Demands DSHS Stop Concealing Abortion Statistics

ACLU of Texas (June 15, 2016), t ACLU of Texas Demands DSHS Stop Concealing Abortion Statistics, by Anna Núñez

The Texas department of State Health Services has gathered abortion statistics for 2014, after the passage of the restrictive HB2, which is currently being challenged as unconstitutional because it imposes an undue burden on women seeking abortions.  The ACLU of Texas is alleging the concealment of the findings. The ACLU said in the linked statement above that they requested the stats "dozens" times, only to be rebuffed by the agency and falsely told that the statistics were not yet ready, though the findings were apparently final in March. The ACLU believes that the reasoning is clear - that DSHS isn't releasing the information because it is damaging to HB2: 

    “The State of Texas claims that HB2 protects women’s health. If that’s true, why wouldn’t our public health agency want to trumpet its success?” said     Terri Burke, executive director for the ACLU of Texas.

The letter also states that supervisors instructed employees to lie about the statistics and avoid mentioning them, in an apparent attempt to circumvent     the legal requirements of the Texas Public Information Act."

The ACLU has also written and released a letter aimed at the defendant in the pending SCOTUS case, Commissioner Hellerstedt, also linked in the above article. 

 

New Scholarship on Reproductive Justice

Linda Edwards, Catherine Walsh, and Michelle Goodwin have recently published articles on reproductive justice.  The abridged abstracts follow:

Hearing Voices: Non-Party Stories in Abortion and Gay Rights Advocacy, by Linda Edwards:

Among the amicus briefs filed in Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists  (1986) was one submitted by the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL). Like the famous "Brandeis Brief" in Muller v. Oregon (1908), the NARAL brief relies on sources outside the trial court record. Unlike the Brandeis Brief, however, the NARAL brief does not treat women as the objects of social science research. Instead, living, breathing women, speaking with the first-person pronoun “I,” tell their own abortion stories.  This article tells the story of that first “voices” brief, its young author, and its amazing civil rights legacy.

Inadequate Access: Reforming Reproductive Health Care Policies for Women Incarcerated in New York State Correctional Facilities, by Catherine Walsh:

Women in New York State prisons face poor-quality care and assaults on their basic human dignity and reproductive rights.  Three issues of particular concern are incarcerated women’s access to gynecological examinations, sanitary supplies, and contraception. This article examines New York State policies addressing reproductive health care for incarcerated women, identifies problems with them, and makes recommendations for reform. perspectives. It recommends bringing New York’s policies in line with legal, medical, and international standards and using existing federal and state programs to provide funding for reproductive care both prior to and after release.

The Pregnancy Penalty, by Michelle Goodwin:

A multitude of state actions serve to sanction and punish pregnant women. It is a fallacy that such punitive state actions “advance” women’s best interest while promoting informed consent. Poor women are symbolically and medically trapped civilly and criminally where extended wait periods, targeted regulations of abortion providers (TRAP laws), and other indignities  burden their constitutional rights. These issues take on a new urgency as lawmakers continue to undermine women’s health care rights.

New Thinking on Abortion Liberty from Ann Furedi and Maya Manian

The Moral Case for Abortion by Ann Furedi.

Ann Furedi is a provider of abortion services in the UK.  In her new book, she asserts that true respect for human life and true regard for individual conscience demand that we respect a woman’s right to decide, and that support for a woman’s right to a termination has moral foundations and ethical integrity.  Drawing on the traditions of sociological thinking and moral philosophy,

                                                                 

Furedi maintains that there is a strong moral case for recognizing autonomy in personal decision-making about reproductive intentions. She argues moreover that to prevent a woman from making her own choice to continue or end her pregnancy is to undermine the essence of her humanity. This fresh perspective on abortion will interest both pro- and anti-choice individuals and organizations, along with academics in the fields of gender studies, philosophy, ethics and religion. 

Minors, Parents, and Minor Parents, by Maya Manian

In her new article in the Missouri Law Review, Maya Manian, a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law, exposes the law's incoherent approach to adolescent reproduction. Her research indicates that states overwhelmingly allow a teenage girl to independently consent to pregnancy care and medical treatment for her child and even to give up her child for adoption, all without notice to her parents, but require parental notice or consent for abortion. Manian theorizes that the unrecognized policy underlying these seemingly contradictory positions is to punish teenage sexuality and undermine adolescents’ reproductive rights. 

                                                                            

Gene Editing Permitted in Britain

New York Times (Feb. 2, 2016): Britain Allows New Method to Edit Genes, by Nicholas Wade:

Gene editing refers to cutting and pasting DNA in and out of human embryos, eggs and sperm.  Used for reproductive purposes, these alterations would be passed down to subsequent generations.  A voluntary worldwide moratorium on making changes to DNA that could be passed down in this way, issued by the United States, Britain and China in December, will remain in place even after the British government's recent decision to allow gene editing of embryos that will not be implanted in a womb.  Researchers want to study "the cascade of genetic switches" thrown during a pre-embryo's progression through its first few divisions.  The research may lead to new and better ways to treat infertility, but the news also figures prominently in the anxious message of researchers that countries should tailor their regulations in order to become stronger competitors in the global race to be first in making advances in reproductive biology. 

Sarah Weddington Writing Contest for Student Scholarship in Reproductive Rights

Law Students for Reproductive Justice: 2016 Sarah Weddington Prize for Student Scholarship in Reproductive Rights: Law Students for Reproductive Justice (LSRJ), the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), and the Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice (CRRJ) at Berkeley Law School have announced details about the 2016 Sarah Weddington Writing Prize. Although the scholarship may be about any reproductive rights or reproductive justice topic, the requested theme for submissions is “Restoring Public Insurance Coverage for Abortion.” This is an excellent opportunity for students to potentially have their scholarship published and/or receive a cash prize if their paper comes in first, second, or third place. Submissions are due by January 18, 2016.

New Scholarship from Dov Fox

Dov Fox (University of San Diego Law) has posted new scholarship on SSRN. Below are the abstracts:

Race Sorting in Family Formation:

Our laws afford enormous freedom not only to parents, but also to the intermediaries — adoption agencies, social workers, sperm banks, and egg vendors — that bring them together with (future) children. These middlemen routinely exercise this discretion to emphasize race in matching parents to the same-race gamete donors or adoptive children they tend to prefer. 

This Symposium Essay provides a conceptual framework to govern the use of race in decisions about family formation. This spectrum of salience-varying ways to manage racial information ranges from those that lay the greatest emphasis on race to those that soften or altogether exclude its expression. 

The Essay locates the operation of these different approaches in the law and practice of adoption and assisted reproduction. That race tends to reproduce itself within the family makes these unique contexts from which to ask what sort of racial self-understandings our multiracial democracy should seek to embody.

 

The State's Interest in Potential Life:

Courts have resolved a range of controversies by casual appeal to the state’s interest in “potential life” that the Supreme Court has held capable of overriding even fundamental rights. My analysis of this potential-life interest reveals its use to mean not one but four species of government concern that I call prenatal welfare, postnatal welfare, social values, and social effects. I demonstrate how these distinct state interests operate -- across a range of different contexts with varying levels of justificatory strength -- to resolve reproductive disputes in more precise and sound ways. I respond to institutional competence and social mediation challenges to disentangling potential-life interests. 

 

Religion and the Unborn under the First Amendment:

Assisted reproduction, stem cell research, and abortion are among the primary social controversies in which religion tends to play a conspicuous role. A prominent objection to government restrictions on such unborn-protective practices holds that they involve judgments about nascent human life that hew too closely to religion under constitutional principles that govern the separation of church and state. I argue that this Establishment Clause challenge trades on a misunderstanding of religion and its relationship to ideas about the unborn. It conflates four influences commonly associated with religion. The first three — compulsions of faith, promises of salvation, and obedience to God — are the ones that government may not endorse. But there is a fourth, involving broader visions about what makes society good, that legitimately animates state action. And it is this fourth influence, I will try to show, that best explains most efforts to protect fetuses and embryos. This isn't to say such laws don't have other constitutional problems; just that the First Amendment isn't one.

Student Scholarship: A Different Approach to Regulating Abortion Clinics

Jessica Ettinger (Notre Dame) has posted Seeking Common Ground in the Abortion Regulation Debate on SSRN. Here is the abstract: 

This Note argues that requiring abortion clinics to adhere to the same standards as ambulatory surgical centers is unconstitutional, at least in the context of those clinics that provide only medication abortion, because it unduly burdens a woman’s right to choose whether to obtain an abortion. Although there may be a rational basis to require abortion clinics offering surgical abortion procedures to meet surgical facility standards, no such basis attends the imposition of those requirements on clinics that provide nonsurgical services. Given the number of clinics that continue to close in the face of this new regulatory legislation — which significantly reduces access to abortion services, increases their cost, and makes them logistically more difficult to procure due to increased geographic travel — it is arguable that even requiring surgical abortion clinics to meet ambulatory surgical center standards will result in an undue burden.

At the same time, however, state legislators have a valid interest in ensuring that abortion procedures are conducted in a safe manner. Although abortion clinics currently are subject to regulatory oversight outside the realm of state-specific statutes, the requirements currently in place govern the privacy of patients’ health records, laboratory testing practices, and workplace health and safety, but do not address directly the regulation of surgical procedures.

In light of the constitutional problems embedded in current state efforts to regulate abortion clinic facilities and the shortcomings of federal regulatory efforts, it may be time to entertain a different approach to abortion clinic regulation. Part I presents the legal framework and standards currently governing abortion legislation. Part II utilizes this foundation to evaluate current problems in state regulatory practices, spotlighting two pieces of recent state legislation that seek to impose ambulatory surgical center standards on all abortion clinic facilities within their borders. Lastly, Part III introduces and outlines an alternate means of regulation — accreditation — that offers common ground in the abortion debate by serving everyone’s interest in providing safe, accessible medical services to women.

Alyson Zureick on Denial of Abortion as a Form of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment

Alyson Zureick (J.D. 2014, NYU Law) has posted (En)Gendering Suffering: Denial of Abortion as a Form of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment on SSRN. Here is the abstract: 

The regulation of abortion has long been considered a prerogative of the state. In recent years, however, international human rights bodies have begun to consider the conformity of domestic abortion regulations with a state’s human rights obligations. This paper examines a notable trend among human rights bodies: namely, finding that denying or obstructing a woman’s access to abortion can amount to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment under multiple human rights treaties. First, human rights bodies have found that states can be responsible for CIDT inflicted on women who are harassed and denied services that are legally available to them under the state’s laws. Second, human rights bodies have found that the application of restrictive abortion laws themselves may inflict CIDT by depriving women of an abortion in particularly serious cases, such as rape or when the woman’s life is threatened. I argue that these findings reflect an understanding that certain restrictions on abortion — or the state’s failure to act to prevent de facto restrictions from arising — are unjustifiable and disproportionate to lawful state aims. They also demonstrate a limited but important recognition that deprivations of autonomy in the reproductive rights context can lead to the kind of pain and suffering that is unacceptable in modern societies. At the same time, I argue that human rights bodies should further strengthen their understanding of women’s autonomy interests in this context, particularly the ways in which the frustration of their reproductive autonomy can inflict severe and unacceptable pain or suffering tantamount to CIDT.

Cook and Dickens on Types of Consent in Reproductive Health Care

Rebecca J. Cook (University of Toronto) and Bernard M. Dickens (University of Toronto) have posted Types of Consent in Reproductive Health Care on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

Healthcare providers require prior consent to treat patients. Consent can be different for legal purposes, and be expressed in different ways. Simple consent affords providers protection from liability for assault, but negligence can arise if the consent is inadequately informed. 

Providers cannot coerce or improperly induce consent; patients’ agreement that a provider wrongly influences is compliance, not true consent. Attempts to rescue patients in peril may be lawful on the presumption of their implied consent, unless patients negate the presumption. In special cases, laws may require that consent be written, but generally consent can be given by speech or conduct. Informed consent depends on patients’ comprehension, but consent for treatment of uncomprehending patients may come from third parties, including legally recognized substitutes or judges. There may be legal limits to reproductive procedures to which patients may consent, under laws that can be respectfully tested, but have to be obeyed.

Ciara O'Connell on Reproductive Rights Cases in the Inter-American System of Human Rights

Ciara O'Connell (University of Sussex) has posted Women's Reproductive Rights in the Inter-American System of Human Rights: Conclusions from the Field, June - September 2014 on SSRN.  Here is the abstract: 

The Inter-American System of Human Rights has proven to be a forum for the advancement of women’s reproductive rights in the Inter-American region. However, the Inter-American System faces significant challenges in promoting structural transformative change that enables women’s enjoyment of their reproductive health rights. This report examines three reproductive rights cases from the Inter- American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights: María Mamerita Mestanza Chávez v. Peru; Paulina Ramirez Jacinto v. Mexico; and Artavia Murillo et al. v. Costa Rica. In the summer of 2014, interviews were conducted with representatives in each of the case study countries, with the objective of the research being two-fold: (1) to understand how each of the cases developed, and the subsequent challenges and advancements; and (2) to learn from these cases in order to suggest recommendations for how actors can make better use of the Inter-American System as one of several avenues for protecting, promoting and fulfilling women’s reproductive rights. The report first discusses challenges in implementing women’s reproductive health rights, and then explores how the Inter-American System can strengthen its work on women’s reproductive health rights.

Richmond Journal of Law & the Public Interest: Call for Papers

From the Richmond Journal of Law & the Public Interest:

The Richmond Journal of Law & the Public Interest is seeking submissions for our 2015 Spring volume.  We welcome high quality and well cited submissions from academics, judges, and established practitioners who would like to take part in the conversation of the evolution of law and its impact on citizens.

We currently have five total openings for articles for the two general issues of our volume.  As a Journal that centers in large part on the Public Interest, we would be happy to accept and review articles on a broad range of topics that affect citizens on a national level or in the Commonwealth of Virginia.  For a sense of what we are seeking for our general issues, please feel free to visit http://rjolpi.richmond.edu/archive.php. 

If you would like to submit an article for review and possibly publication, or if you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to contact our Lead Articles Editors - Rich Forzani and Hillary Wallace.  They can be reached, respectively, at [email protected] and [email protected].

New Report on Sex-Selective Abortions

The University of Chicago Law School International Human Rights Clinic, National Asian Pacific Women's Forum, and Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health: Replacing Myths With Facts: Sex-Selective Abortions In the United States:

Sex selection is the practice of attempting to control the sex of one’s offspring in order to achieve a desired sex. One method of sex selection is sex-selective abortion. Laws banning sex-selective abortion are proliferating in the United States. Eight states have enacted laws prohibiting sex- selective abortion. Twenty-one states and the federal government have considered such laws since 2009. Those laws prohibit the performance of an abortion if sought based on the sex of the fetus and provide for both criminal and civil penalties in most cases...

A great deal of misinformation exists regarding sex selection in the United States. We have identified six inaccuracies commonly associated with sex-selective abortion and laws prohibiting it. They appear, among other places, in statements made by legislators, testimony submitted to legislatures, and reports issued by legislative committees that have considered or adopted laws banning sex- selective abortion. We present each piece of inaccurate information as a “myth.” This Report draws on legal research, empirical analysis of U.S. birth data, field-work, and an extensive review of scholarly publications in social sciences, law and other disciplines to replace these myths with facts. . . .

Researchers Conclude that Judges with Daughters Tend To Vote "In a More Feminist Fashion"

NPR:  Research: Children Of Judges May Influence Court Decisions, by Shankar Vedantam:

It's been suspected that judges are swayed by their personal beliefs and affiliations. An analysis found that judges become more likely to rule in "pro-feminist" ways if the judges have daughters. . . .

Listen to the story.  Here is the abtract of the paper:

In this paper, we ask whether personal relationships can affect the way that judges decide cases. To do so, we leverage the natural experiment of a child's gender to identify the effect of having daughters on the votes of judges. Using new data on the family lives of U.S. Courts of Appeals judges, we find that, conditional on the number of children a judge has, judges with daughters consistently vote in a more feminist fashion on gender issues than judges who have only sons. This result survives a number of robustness tests and appears to be driven primarily by Republican judges. More broadly, this result demonstrates that personal experiences influence how judges make decisions, and it is the first paper to show that empathy may indeed be a component in how judges decide cases. . . .

U.S. Teen Pregnancy, Birth, And Abortion Rates Reach Historic Lows

The Guttmacher Institute news release:  U.S. TEEN PREGNANCY, BIRTH AND ABORTION RATES REACH HISTORIC LOWS:

Teen Pregnancy Rates Declined in Every State and Among All Racial and Ethnic Groups

Rates of teen pregnancy, birth and abortion have declined dramatically in the United States since their peak in the early 1990s. In 2010, some 614,000 pregnancies occurred among teenage women aged 15–19, for a rate of 57.4 pregnancies per 1,000 women that age. This marks a 51% decline from the 1990 peak, and a 15% decline in just two years, from 67.8 in 2008, according to “U.S. Teenage Pregnancies, Births and Abortions, 2010: National and State Trends by Age, Race and Ethnicity,” a new study by the Guttmacher Institute. Similarly, the teen birthrate declined 44% from the peak in 1991 (from 61.8 births per 1,000 to 34.4 per 1,000); and the teen abortion rate declined 66% between its 1988 peak and 2010 (from 43.5 abortions per 1,000 to 14.7 per 1,000). . . .