Global Reproductive Rights & Resistance: A Community Conversation & Workshop with Elizabeth Ananat, Kadambari Baxi, Cecelia Lie-Spahn, and Wendy Schor-Haim

The 2022 U.S. Supreme Court Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling overturned nearly 50 years of legal protections established by Roe v. Wade (1973), ending the constitutional right to an abortion in the United States. Currently, each state decides whether abortion is legal and under what conditions, and the impact of this ruling is felt unevenly and unequally by people who are or may become pregnant. This community event brings together the diverse expertise of our faculty, Barnard’s international student body, and the College’s history and archives surrounding reproductive justice and freedom to situate this landmark decision in a broader historical and global context.

To develop shared language for discussion, Barnard faculty will provide short presentations on the following concepts and terms:

• the framework of reproductive justice for analyzing unequal access to reproductive care,
• the history of fetal viability and its reverberations into the present,
• the practice of self-managed abortions in the U.S., and
• The impact of trigger laws and reimagining spaces and networks of reproductive care. 

Following these short presentations, attendees will be invited to articulate questions together and draw connections and comparisons between these themes and the legality of reproductive healthcare in other countries and political contexts. This event will also showcase two exhibits: Trigger Planting 2.0 and Abortion in Context, both in Milstein. Participants are encouraged to engage with the exhibitions in the weeks leading up to the event.  

Find out more about the Year of Election around the World series of events.