State of California flag on a flagpole.

California’s Reproductive Freedom Efforts Should Meaningfully Include People With Disabilities

By Joelle Boxer

Last month, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a package of nine reproductive health care bills, following the passage of fifteen such bills in 2022. While the state should be lauded for its efforts, it has come up short. Recent legislation largely excludes up to 25% of the adult population: Californians with disabilities.

People with disabilities in the U.S. experience wide disparities in accessing reproductive health care, rooted in a long history of oppressive reproductive control. California should take action now to address these disparities and fulfil its goal of becoming a “reproductive freedom state” for all.

This article will examine recent movement on reproductive health care legislation in California, explain its failure to meet the needs of Californians with disabilities, and suggest a path forward in line with principles of disability reproductive justice.

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Miniature of a passenger plane flying on the map of United States of America from south east. Conceptual image for tourism and travel.

The Constitutionality of Banning Interstate Travel for Abortion

By Hannah Rahim

After the Supreme Court eliminated the constitutionally protected right to abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, right-wing states have begun enacting abortion bans and discussing the possibility of restricting interstate travel for abortion.

Although there is a general presumption against a state’s ability to regulate extraterritorially (i.e., beyond its borders), legal authority suggests that the Constitution does not clearly prohibit a state from regulating abortion travel.

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Women take part in a march in defense of legal abortion on International Safe Abortion Day at Paulista Avenue in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on September 28, 2023.

Why We Still Need a Day for Global Action to Decriminalize Abortion in Latin America

By Alma Beltrán y Puga

More than 30 years have passed since women gathered for the Fifth Feminist Latin American Meeting in Argentina and launched the September 28th Campaign in favor of decriminalizing abortion in the region.

The initiative, however, remains painfully relevant, as still today most countries in Central America and the Caribbean prohibit abortion even in cases of sexual violence and instances where the pregnant woman’s health (and, potentially, life) is at stake. Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic hold the most restrictive abortion laws in the region.

Change may happen soon, though, as the Interamerican Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) is set to decide an abortion case from El Salvador; the case of Beatriz, which hopefully will catalyze reform to discriminatory abortion laws.

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Puebla, Mexico - September 28, 2020: With green scarves, members of feminist collectives demonstrate in the streets of the Historic Center of Puebla to demand the legalization of abortion.

Sex Equality in #SeptiembreVerde: Examining the Mexican Supreme Court’s Abortion Decriminalization Decision

By Joelle Boxer

Earlier this month, Mexico’s Supreme Court issued a ruling decriminalizing abortion nationwide, setting a powerful example in the global trend of abortion law liberalization, including on the grounds of sex equality.

Hailed as “incredible” by reproductive justice advocates, the decision will be most impactful in the 20 Mexican states where local laws still criminalize abortion, potentially removing access barriers for more than 42 million women.

This article will explain the origins of the case, what the decision holds, and what it says about sex equality.

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Close up of surgery team operating.

Access to Uterus Transplantation and the Workplace

By Natasha Hammond-Browning

Uterus transplantation first hit the headlines in 2014, with the birth of the first baby born following a uterus transplant. This first birth in Sweden has led to trials worldwide. Most recently, in August 2023, the United Kingdom saw its first uterus transplant. In the United States, the University of Alabama (UAB) Medicine uterus transplant program is the first program to offer uterus transplantation outside of a clinical trial, and the first birth in that program was in May 2023.

While recent estimates of future uterus transplants are relatively small — for instance, Womb Transplant UK estimates that between 20-30 uterus transplants could be performed annually — the increasing number of uterus transplant recipients should not be ignored. In particular, questions of access and the workplace rights of those undergoing this surgery are important to consider. This post will briefly lay out some of the issues that may arise for potential recipients and their partners in the workplace.

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Scales with the center depicted as an egg being fertilized through ivf.

Surrogacy and Employment Rights in the UK    

By Zaina Mahmoud and Kirsty Horsey

At the end of March 2023, the Law Commission of England and Wales and the Scottish Law Commission published their joint Report, Building Families Through Surrogacy: A New Law, outlining recommendations for a new regulatory regime governing surrogacy in the UK, including a new route to (legal) parenthood for intended parents (IPs), referred to as “the new pathway” (para 1.10). Chapter 15 of the Report provides an overview of the consequential impact of surrogacy on other areas of law — most relevantly here, employment law.

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Large and diverse group of people seen from above gathered together in the shape of two intersecting circles.

An Intersectional Analysis of Proposed Fertility Leave in England and Wales

By Elizabeth Chloe Romanis and Sabrina Germain

For people in England and Wales needing access to fertility treatment, economic barriers can be a huge hurdle. There are the direct costs of the treatment (some, but not all, of which are covered by the National Health Service). But there are also the less visible indirect costs associated with accessing these treatments. These include needing time off work to attend appointments, funding travel to and from fertility clinics, and having access to spaces at work to store and administer medication and take private phone calls. Indirect costs limit access to fertility treatment for structurally disadvantaged individuals in England and Wales. It is for this reason that a Private Member’s Bill currently being debated in the House of Commons, the Fertility Treatment (Employment Rights) Bill, which seeks to introduce fertility leave in the UK, should be welcomed (see earlier posts in this symposium by Dafni Lima and Manna Mostaghim).

Introducing a formal entitlement to “allow employees to take time off from work for appointments for fertility treatment; and for connected purposes” is a step in the right direction. We offer an intersectional reading of the Fertility Treatment (Employment Rights) Bill and consider how the benefits offered are likely to be stratified along class, race, sexuality, and gender lines. The Bill is well-meaning and highlights the critical issue of indirect barriers to fertility treatment in the workplace, but it is inattentive to structural issues affecting marginalized people experiencing infertility.

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Out of office - memo on office desk with glasses, pen, clock, paperclip.

Fertility Leave: Seeking Assisted Reproductive Technology as an Employee in the UK

By Manna Mostaghim

Fertility leave — employer-sanctioned time off for fertility treatment appointments — is becoming a feature of modern employment relationships in the UK. Some public and private sector employers in the UK have fertility leave policies within their organizations; however, currently there is no “statutory right to time off for fertility appointments” in UK law. As of March 20th, 2023, a private members’ bill (the Fertility Treatment (Employment Rights) Bill) has had its second reading in the House of Commons to codify the right for employers to be required to “allow employees to take time off from work for appointments for fertility treatment.” But, as it stands, employees in the UK still require the beneficent support of their employers to receive support and fertility leave in their workplaces.

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A Liquid Nitrogen Bank Containing Sperm and Eggs Samples - ivf - in vitro fertilization, egg freezing.

Egg Freezing in Israel: Legal Framework and Women’s Viewpoints

By Yael Hashiloni-Dolev and Nitzan Rimon-Zarfaty

In 2009, Israel was one of the first countries to authorize social egg freezing, before it was declared non-experimental.

Israel is a highly pronatalist familistic society with relatively high marriage rates, low divorce rates, and the highest birth rate among OECD countries. Israeli pronatalism frames the favorable Israeli approach to fertility medicine and preservation. Currently, egg freezing is used for both medical and social reasons, and for transgender men.

Israeli policy views social egg freezing as primarily enabling, based on liberal ideology, “individual autonomy.”

Indeed, on one hand, social egg freezing has been praised as a revolutionary solution for women’s age-related fertility decline, thus providing women with liberating opportunities. On the other hand, it has been criticized for as oriented toward women’s bodies rather than toward taking away social obstacles to their full participation in the labor market and society in general. Giant corporations such as Apple and Facebook have offered funding for social egg freezing to their female employees while provoking ongoing bioethical and public debates regarding their implications, including; medicalization, (dis)empowerment, “appropriate” motherhood, medical risks, and success rates. This post considers these debates with a focus on the Israeli context.

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EU flags in front of European Commission in Brussels.

Surrogacy and the Workplace: Maternity, Paternity, and Parental Leave in the European Union

By Marianna Iliadou

In surrogacy, a woman (surrogate) gestates a child for a (different/same-sex) couple or single person (intended parents [IPs]). This can generate issues in the workplace: for example, IPs may be unable to secure leave after the birth of the surrogate-born child, as maternity leave is traditionally linked to gestation and childbirth. In this blog post, I will examine maternity, paternity, and parental leave within the European Union (EU) and its applicability to surrogacy. While EU maternity leave policy regarding surrogacy has not seen developments since 2014, recent developments concerning paternity leave bring the topic back to the fore.

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