DICKINSON LAW AND PARTNERS COMMEMORATE CONSTITUTION DAY WITH REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE EVENT
September 2022 — The Supreme Court’s June 24 decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization revoked the constitutional right to an abortion, overturning Roe vs. Wade and clearing the way for states to ban the procedure. The decision has sparked debate, derision, and an endless stream of headlines. But what are the immediate and long-term legal ramifications of Dobbs? How will they impact not just reproductive rights but also the humanity and dignity of those in a multicultural society?
Those were some of the questions addressed during a recent event co-sponsored by Penn State Dickinson Law. “Constitution Day: Reproductive Justice in the Wake of the Supreme Court’s Decision to Overturn Roe v. Wade” brought two renowned legal scholars to Carlisle to discuss the implications of Dobbs and the legal crossroads ahead.
Dickinson College and the Department of Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies, the AAUW-Carlisle (PA) branch, and the YWCA Carlisle & Cumberland County co-sponsored the September 12 event. It included a “Lunch & Learn” held at Dickinson College, featuring Rutgers Law School Co-Dean and Professor of Law Kimberly Mutcherson and Melissa Murray, the Frederick I. and Grace Stokes Professor of Law at New York University Law. Later in the day at Dickinson Law, Mutcherson and Murray participated in a keynote panel moderated by Dr. Mireille Rebeiz, associate professor of women's, gender, and sexuality studies and francophone studies at Dickinson College.
Constitution Day is celebrated on September 17, the day the U.S. Constitution was signed in 1787. In introducing the panel, Dean and Donald J. Farage Professor of Law Danielle M. Conway said the event took place a few days early to “prepare our community for the work” of upholding the document.
“We are here in advance of Constitution Day because we have to get prepared for the work,” said Conway. “We are going to do the work to recognize how women have built, on their backs, equality for this nation. Why? Because our Constitution, as rebooted by the Reconstruction amendments, obligates us to do that work.”
Rebeiz began the panel by noting the wealth of misinformation about reproductive justice and asked Mutcherson to define the concept. The internationally recognized expert in family and health law explained that reproductive justice and reproductive rights are very different. Black women started the reproductive justice movement in 1994, and it centers on three tenets.
“The first is that women have a human right to decide if and when they want to have a child. The second is that you have a right to decide you do not want to have a child and to have access to the tools of not having a child,” said Mutcherson. “The third tenet is that we have a right to raise our children in safe and healthy environments.” Many things play into that decision. Prospective parents worried about climate change, gun violence, or the availability of quality childcare might not consider their environment safe or healthy, she noted. “Reproductive justice is not just about abortion,” said Mutcherson.
The conversation touched on what Dobbs means for health care providers. Murray pointed out that physicians now face ethical and legal issues related to civil liability and the threat of malpractice if they perform abortions. “They do not know where that liability begins and where their medical judgment ends,” said Murray, who frequently speaks about such legal issues on NPR and other news outlets.
Later, Rebeiz fielded questions from the audience. One asked how to raise awareness of reproductive justice. Mutcherson noted it can happen when the unexpected occurs, such as an unplanned pregnancy or a pregnancy with complications. Then, people often reexamine their beliefs. “These camps that we have put ourselves in are much more rigid than they should be because life is much more complicated than we would like to think about,” said Mutcherson.
Another audience member wondered about the takeaways from the recent defeat of an amendment to effectively ban abortion in Kansas, a traditionally red state. Murray responded that the greater lesson may be related to rampant gerrymandering of state legislatures. “A lot of states lack Kansas’ mechanism for direct democracy for ballot initiatives, so this is not necessarily a template,” said Murray. “Instead, Indiana and South Carolina [which both introduced abortion bans in the state legislature], those are the templates for representative government. The real question is, how do you undistort the distortion that gerrymandering has wrought in those state legislatures? That is a harder nut to crack.”
The 75-minute panel concluded with a reminder from Conway that “the work is now. Thank you for joining in the work. Let’s get to it.”