Decriminalizing Our Reproductive Lives: How Lawyers Can Promote Reproductive Justice and Serve Our Communities [WEBINAR/CLE]

Friday, May 26 at 3 PM EST/ Noon PST | Register now! Space is limited.
1 hour California MCLE credit pending

Join us for this FREE webinar on reproductive justice with speakers from If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice, the Self-Induced Abortion (SIA) Legal Team, and the National Lawyers Guild!

Session Description

Criminalization affects our reproductive lives. From punishment of pregnancy outcomes, to coerced sterilization of incarcerated people, to destruction of families through mass incarceration, communities who are marginalized and targeted for criminalization in the United States face challenges that are complex and often overlooked in discourse around reproductive freedom. The Reproductive Justice framework acknowledges that decisions that people make about their pregnancies and their families may be affected by the law in ways that go beyond the legal rights to contraception and abortion.

But the complexities of the challenges provide opportunities for creative lawyering in service of community needs. The panel will explore the intersection of criminalization and reproduction, and how the principles of community lawyering can help advance reproductive justice.  The panel will focus this inquiry using the example of self-induced abortion, an issue that has become more pressing as legislatures are emboldened to restrict access to clinic-based abortion. Abortion is a constitutionally protected right, and yet people have faced arrest, prosecution, and punishment for ending their own pregnancies. By discussing key laws and cases, panelists will identify obstacles and lay out a vision for law and policy strategies, and provide examples of lawyering that attempts to maintain accountability to community needs.

Speakers
  • Mariko Miki, JD, is Director of Academic & Professional Programs, If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice. Mariko provides vision, direction, and evaluation for multi-faceted projects in curriculum enrichment and professional training. Mariko also designs and directs the Reproductive Justice Fellowship Program, which places new lawyers with organizations across the country for a one-year policy fellowship to advance reproductive justice at the federal, state, and regional level. Mariko has served on the Board of Directors for Exhale Pro-Voice and was named a 2014 CoreAlign Generative Fellow.

  • Farah Diaz-Tello, JD, is a U.S. human rights attorney in service of reproductive justice, focusing in particular of the rights of pregnant and birthing people. She is Senior Counsel for the Self-Induced Abortion (SIA) Legal Team, where she works to ensure that people can end their own pregnancies outside of the formal medical system with dignity and without fear of arrest. Farah serves on the boards of All-Options and the Family Law Cannabis Alliance.

  • Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan, JD, is a human rights lawyer and President of the National Lawyers Guild, the oldest and largest progressive bar association in the country.  She is Associate Counsel at LatinoJustice PRLDEF, a national civil rights organization, she works with low-wage Latina immigrant workers seeking workplace justice and fair labor conditions and addresses the discriminatory targeting of Latinos in the criminal justice system. She has advocated before international and regional human rights bodies on issues including sexual violence in armed conflict, femicide, reproductive rights violations, hate crimes, as well as human rights violations in Vieques, Puerto Rico.

Photo: Charlotte Cooper / flickr

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