September 24: Webcast+Cleveland - Sneaking Around the Constitution: Pretextual “Health” Laws and the Future of Roe v. Wade

Nancy NorthupPresident and CEOCenter for Reproductive Rights

Recently, reproductive rights have been significantly undermined by an insidious foe: pretextual state laws that purport to advance a legitimate governmental concern – health and safety – but are in fact designed to shut down reproductive healthcare clinics and block access to abortion services. Since 2011, hundreds of such laws have been enacted and many have been challenged in constitutional lawsuits that seek to uphold the protections of Roe v. Wade. 
As the issue heads for the Supreme Court, this lecture will examine what has happened when such pretextual laws have been challenged in the courts and what is needed to ensure meaningful review of states’ asserted health interests and meaningful access to abortion services. Comparisons will be made to the pretexual use of voter fraud to enact burdensome restrictions on the right to vote. A key topic to be explored is whether the time has come for reproductive rights to have federal statutory protections analogous to those in the Voting Rights Act.

Title:
Sneaking Around the Constitution: Pretextual “Health” Laws and the Future of Roe v. Wade
When/Where:
September 24, 2015
4:30 P.M. - 5:30 P.M.
Moot Courtroom (A59)
Case Western Reserve University School of Law
11075 East Boulevard
Cleveland, OH 44106-7148
Also Webcast - Register Now!
Speaker:
Nancy Northup is President and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, a global human rights organization has documented rights abuses, brought groundbreaking cases before national courts, U.N. committees, and regional human rights bodies, and built the legal capacity of women's rights advocates in over 55 countries.
Under her leadership, the Center’s game changing litigation and advocacy work, combined with its unparalleled expertise in the use of constitutional, international, and comparative human rights law, have transformed how reproductive rights are understood by courts, governments, and human rights bodies. It has played a key role in securing legal victories in the U.S., Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe on issues including access to life-saving obstetrics care, contraception, safe abortion services, and comprehensive sexuality information, as well as the prevention of forced sterilization and child marriage.
Before joining the Center in 2003, Ms. Northup was the founding director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, served as a prosecutor and Deputy Chief of Appeals in U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, and clerked for Judge Alvin B. Rubin on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Ms. Northup has taught courses in constitutional and human rights law at Columbia and NYU law schools.
By:
Oliver C. Schroeder, Jr. Scholar-in-Residence Lecture, Case Western Reserve University School of Law
Credit:
Approved for 1 hour of in-person CLE credit
Cost:
Free and open to the public. Pre-registration required.
More Information and Registration