Due to some last minute changes in the schedule, we are seeking some additional discussants for the Emerging Issues in Reproductive Rights Discussion Group. Our session is currently scheduled for August 6th from 1 pm – 2:45 pm. If you would like to participate in an interesting and engaging discussion, please contact Seema Mohapatra at smohapatra@barry.edu with a brief description of what you would like to discuss. The session will cover the topics described below.
Emerging Issues in Reproductive Rights
Description:
Reproductive technologies continue to evolve and develop at a breakneck pace. This evolution in the treatment of infertility, in conception, pregnancy, and what it means to reproductive rights has created a web of questions that spreads beyond the technologies themselves, to include questions of ethics, access, and a balancing of legal interests of all those involved.
Three trends emerge in viewing reproductive rights broadly: identity, access, and the intersection between reproductive rights and other legal claims- both in practice and in the classroom. First, at the most basic level, it becomes important to identify the parties and the nature of their interests in such technology and the exercise of their rights in order to properly frame the discussion. Do infertile couples view themselves as consumers or patients? How do third-parties view infertility and those who seek to assert their rights to infertility treatment? Also, there are important questions to consider about the outer limits of access and control. For instance, to what extent should appropriate, affordable reproductive health care be available? Who decides how much access and what treatments are available, and who decides when reproductive rights begin and end? Where there are competing rights between similarly situated parents, how do you balance those interests and how much influence should government have in those decisions? Finally, there is an obvious overlap between traditional legal claims and reproductive rights. How do concepts of property, torts, contracts, and health law intersect with reproductive rights and how do we respond to the legal issues such an intersection and overlap naturally generate? In probing further, how do we quantify and convey those issues both in practice as well as in the classroom? Scholars continue to respond to these developments by probing the contours and limits of reproductive rights. This discussion group considers the emerging legal and policy issues that affect how we view and interpret reproductive rights.