This past Thursday, Barnard College hosted a faculty panel titled “Global Reproductive Rights and Resistance” as the first event in their series “The Year of Elections Around the World.”

This past Thursday, October 17, Barnard College hosted the first installment in their event series “The Year of Elections around the World,” which explores topics relevant to the significant political elections happening in over 75 countries this year. This event, titled “Global Reproductive Rights and Resistance,” was a community conversation centered around the 2022 US Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade and ending the constitutional right to abortion in the United States. Through flash presentations by Barnard faculty and an interdisciplinary discussion between audience members, the event was meant to visualize how this decision has implications for the 2024 US elections and connects to reproductive justice policies around the world.

The event was introduced by Barnard Provost and Dean of Faculty Rebecca Walkowitz. Due to the shift in the landscape of reproductive health in America in 2022 after the landmark case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, she affirmed the importance for us, today, to learn from both current and historical perspectives that consider reproductive justice from a global lens. Thursday’s discussion focused on four key terms “as a shared language for dialogue and analysis”: reproductive justice, fetal viability, self-managed abortions, and trigger laws. Faculty presentations expanded upon each of these key terms and provided the audience with the context and history behind them.

The first flash presentation, centered around reproductive justice, was delivered by Mallya Professor of Women and Economics Elizabeth Ananat. The origins of the reproductive justice framework began in 1994, just before the UN meeting on Population and Development, where 12 Black women met in Chicago at a larger conference to build out a richer vision of reproductive health for all women. Reproductive justice was to be an intersectional framework combining reproductive health and social justice. Intersectionality in social movements involves people bringing all aspects of their identity to the issue, “deepening our understanding of the conditions that affect us all.”

According to Ananat, there are three main tenets under the reproductive justice umbrella. The first is the right to choose to have a child, which stems from a history of forced contraception, abortion, and sterilization primarily imposed on marginalized groups and people of color. The second is the right to choose not to have a child, which we see today in particular through abortion bans in several states and restriction of access to contraception. The third and final tenet (and one often absent from reproductive health conversations) is the right to parent children in a healthy environment. Today, the exposure of children to polluted neighborhoods and gun violence as a direct result of redlining and the decision not to expand the Child Tax Credit have made it difficult for all parents to safely raise their children. 

The second presentation given by Professor Wendy Schor-Haim, an English professor and a co-creator of the 2024 “Abortion in Context” course at Barnard, focused on the term fetal viability and its historical origins. A major buzzword in the current conversation around reproductive rights, fetal viability is the point after which abortion is banned in most states in the US. Schor-Haim’s presentation aimed to answer the following question: What exactly does this term mean?

Schor-Haim described a fetus as an “unborn offspring,” typically from nine weeks until birth. Fetal viability is technically the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb (around 24 weeks), but this number has been pushed back to around 22 weeks because of the advent of modern medical technology. The idea of fetal viability connects to a term “quickening” used by ancient thinkers to describe “fetal animation or ensoulment,” or in other words, when a pregnant person feels the fetus moving in their womb.

As the 2022 Dobbs decision rests on a particular reading of the past that calls upon a historical criminal treatment of abortion, Schor-Haim delved into the intricacies of ancient European thought around reproductive health. While abortion was thought of as a sin by the Catholic Church, it was thought of as a crime punishable by the legal system only in specific circumstances (primarily relating to the assault of pregnant women). In many cases, pregnancy and childbirth were considered a private, feminine sphere that did not enter into the public sphere of common law. When considering the future of reproductive rights within the American legal system, Schor-Haim noted that it is interesting to note the historical precedence or lack thereof for these measures.

English Professor Cecelia Lie-Spahn, a co-creator of the “Abortion in Context” course, then gave her presentation on self-managed abortion. Self-managed abortion, which Lie-Spahn defined as “ending one’s own pregnancy outside of the formal healthcare system,” highlights the communities of care that have sprung out of efforts for people to have safe abortions in the wake of Dobbs. There are many ways in which people end their own pregnancies, Lie-Spahn noted, including through medications such as mifepristone and misoprostol (as well as herbs, plants, and other substances.)

However, the World Health Organization (WHO) characterizes abortions as safe only when they are carried out using methods appropriate to the pregnancy duration by someone with the necessary skills. A safe self-managed abortion must occur under even more specific circumstances, said Lie-Spahn. The abortion must involve the use of either mifepristone which loosens the uterine lining or misoprostol which causes uterine contradictions. The pregnant person also has to have accurate information about these drugs, including dosage, how to ingest them, expected side effects, and warning signs telling them to seek external treatment.

According to Lie-Spahn, medicated abortion (both self-managed and not) has become the most common method of abortion in the US, accounting for more than 60% of abortions in 2023. Because the Dobbs decision “shifted legal and medical liability onto everyday people,” they were required to find each other within community networks for support. “We often think about medicated, self-managed abortion as the most ideal form of reproductive freedom,” Lie-Spahn said. “But the reality actually shows something quite different—the development of enormous networks of people to fill the gaps of reproductive care in our healthcare system.”

The fourth and final presentation about trigger laws was given by Architecture Professor Kadambari Baxi. Trigger laws are state laws surrounding abortion that were “triggered” by the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022. These laws essentially fragmented the US on reproductive rights, creating new boundaries and zones with vastly different levels of access to abortion. In total, more than 1,300 restrictions have been enacted due to trigger laws. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), one in five patients now travel out of state for abortion care.

In addition to her presentation, Baxi co-created an exhibition called “Trigger Planting 2.0” in the Milstein Center lobby. Baxi explained that the installation features a map that “invites us to consider the fragmented landscape for reproductive healthcare in the US at many different angles.” Focusing on confounding legislation that varies from state to state and intersecting themes such as activism, technologies, and hospitals, the aim of the exhibit is to provide a framework for possibilities for change. The “planting” portion of the exhibit can be experienced up close, with herbs planted in the Trigger Planting garden outside the Diana Center.

The Milstein Center features an additional student-created exhibition titled “Abortion in Context,” which is a collection of posters created by students. The posters invited audience members to learn about activists, advocates, and practitioners that can expand the ways we think about reproductive justice. Look out for these two exhibitions in Milstein and future events in the election series with topics such as immigration and climate change.

Image via Bwarchives