There will be a Hot Topic panel on “Reproductive Justice after Carhart” at the AALS Annual Meeting in New York. Here is the information:
Friday, January 4, 2008
10:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Petit Trianon, 3 rd floor, New York Hilton
Moderators: Pamela S. Karlan, Stanford Law School
Jack M. Balkin, Yale Law School
Panelists: Michael C. Dorf, Columbia University School of Law
Reva B. Siegel, Yale Law School
Kenji Yoshino, Yale Law School
Angela P. Harris, University of California, Berkeley School of Law
This roundtable will discuss Gonzales v. Carhart, the Supreme Court’s 2007 decision upholding the federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act. Panelists will focus on the ways that Carhart has emerged from and is reshaping debate over questions of reproductive justice in popular movements, the academy, state legislatures, and the courts.Carhart suggests a new understanding of the state’ s interest in regulating abortion, as well as a new understanding of the abortion right itself. Discussion will explore how the abortion right might be grounded in principles of sexual freedom and gender equality. Drawing on examples of abortion regulation now in state legislatures, the roundtable will examine the constituent elements of the government’s interest in regulating abortion, including the government’s asserted interest in protecting women from psychological harms associated with the abortion decision and the equities of imposing more extensive and value-laden informed consent requirements, as many states are now contemplating. The group will also discuss changes in the structure of abortion-related litigation, such as the distinction between as-applied and facial attacks on abortion regulations, especially as this bears on the requirement of a health exception.
