Course
Reproductive Rights and the Jurisprudence of Equality in the Context of a Transforming Supreme Court: Seminar
Ms. Janet Benshoof, Lecturer on Law
Srping 2007
(Please consult the Registrar's Course Guide for up to date scheduling information.)
Over the past thirty years the United State Supreme Court has both recognized reproductive rights as protected under the constitutional right to privacy and then singled out and removed such protections from selected reproductive rights; mainly abortion rights. This course examines this evolution and devolution of reproductive rights including the split in Supreme Court jurisprudence defining women's equality rights in general with that defining women's equality rights in the context of abortion decision making.
One major theme will be examining how the national litigation and advocacy strategies dominating abortion and sex discrimination cases have influenced the development of separate and unequal law for women in the area of reproductive rights. A second theme will be how the ideological, legal, and political anti-abortion movement has impacted constitutional jurisprudence beyond privacy rights, including free speech, religion, equality, and association rights. A third theme will be the divergent direction of international jurisprudence and its potential impact on the U.S. courts, looking for example at the developing law under the international treaty for the Convention for Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
This seminar will meet once a week for two credits and is limited to fifteen students. Constitutional law is a prerequisite. There will be an in-class midterm and a final paper. The course materials will be both on the web and distributed prior to the first day of class.
Janet Benshoof is an attorney and founder and president emeritus of the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy (now the Center for Reproductive Rights), a nonprofit human rights organization specializing in domestic and international reproductive rights laws. She has litigated constitutional cases in more than forty states and the United States Supreme Court. After working in the field of reproductive rights advocacy for many decades, Ms. Benshoof is currently pursuing global women's rights and human rights issues through the Global Justice Center, which she founded and runs from New York City. In August 2006, the Global Justice Center trained Iraqi judges on sex and gender issues in the law.