BRAVE NEW FAMILIES (Indiana University Bloomington: Gender Studies) – “How do we define our families and the meaning of family ties? Who do we count as kin? How do our definitions compare with those instituted by governments, medical professionals, or cultural or religious communities? This course asks questions such as these as it examines the diversification of family in our contemporary era. By investigating familial contexts around the world, we will study the different values and principles that shape changes in family formation and roles. We will ask how different configurations of gender, sexual orientation, class, race and ethnicity, religion, and nationality affect how we form families, the significance of family ties, and the varied kinds of work that families do in our world today. We will also discuss how developments in medical science, such as assisted reproductive technologies, have transformed family composition and how we understand who counts as kin. We will use individual case studies to explore how changing values of care, new definitions of relatedness, and the shifting landscape of governmental and legal regulation are transforming family relationships as multifaceted sources of meaning and support in people’s lives.” 

CHILDBIRTH IN THE US (University of Wisconsin-Madison: Gender and Women’s Studies) –“This course examines birth and power in both of these senses through a reproductive justice framework, a framework for analysis and action developed by Black women and women of color health organizers and scholars. We will analyze contexts, experiences, practices, ideologies, and historiographies of childbirth in the United States from roughly the 17^th century to the present, with the heaviest emphasis on the 20th and 21^st century.” 

FERTILITY AND REPRODUCTION (University of Texas at Austin: Sociology/Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies) – “Why do birth rates rise and fall? How can the U.S. have both record rates of childlessness as well as the highest rates of teen childbearing and unwanted pregnancy in the industrialized world? Why does educating women lower birth rates faster than any population control program in the Third World? This course will explore when, why, how, and with whom Americans bear children, and how we compare to other developed and developing countries in the world. Students will analyze the social control of reproduction and the struggle for reproductive justice, the rapid rise of nonmarital childbearing in the U.S. and other countries, infertility and its treatments, the ethics of surrogacy, foreign adoption, the politics of pregnancy and childbearing, risks of maternal mortality in developed and developing countries, race, class and infant mortality in the U.S., and the rapid aging and population decline of rich countries (like Japan, Italy, and Russia) where women are on ‘birthstrikes’.” 

GENDER, RACE, AND MEDICINE (Northeastern University: Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies/African American Studies/History) – “Examines the basic tenets of ‘scientific objectivity’ and foundational scientific ideas about race, sex, and gender and what these have meant for marginalized groups in society, particularly when they seek medical care. Introduces feminist science theories and contemporary as well as historical examples to trace the evolution of ‘scientific truth’ and its impact on the U.S. cultural landscape. Offers students the opportunity to question assumptions about science and view the scientific process as a site for critical analysis.” 

GENDER, RACE, SEXUALITY, AND THE LAW (Indiana University Bloomington: Gender Studies) – “Examines the complex ways in which the law structures and is shaped by relations of gender, race, and sexuality. Introduces key legal cases and theory texts concerning reproductive rights, anti-sodomy laws, marriage, religion, free speech, affirmative action, and workplace discrimination.” 

GENDER AND REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE (Northeastern University: Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies/History/Sociology) – “Introduces the social, legal, and economic barriers to accessing reproductive healthcare domestically and internationally. Draws on various theoretical and analytic tools including critical race theory, critical legal theory, sociology of science, human rights, feminist theory, and a range of public health methods. Access to reproductive health services, including abortion, is one of the most contested political, social, cultural, and religious issues today. Covers domestic, regional, and international legal and regulatory frameworks on sexual reproductive.”  

GENDER, RACE, AND REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE (Queens University: Gender Studies) – “Course examines reproductive justice through a feminist, anti-racist, anti-colonial, intersectional lens. Examines how and why the fight for the legalization of abortion has centered on white women and study three goals of reproductive justice.”  

GENDER, SEXUALITY, AND REPRODUCTION: PUBLIC HEALTH PERSPECTIVES (University of Wisconsin-Madison: Gender and Women’s Studies) – “This course explores several theoretical lenses, disciplinary approaches, and substantive topical areas relating to reproductive and sexual health. We will begin the course by investigating the development of both “reproductive justice” and “sexual health” as phenomena in public health research, policy, and programs, looking back to feminist responses to population control policies of the 1970s. Subsequent weeks of the semester will cover substantive topical areas in the field (e.g., adolescent sexual development, contraception, and sexual and reproductive violence). Course materials will expose students to epidemiological and data-driven aspects of these topics (e.g., prevalence, trends, definitions) as well as feminist socio-cultural critiques of the empirical research.” 

WOMEN’S HEALTH/REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH (UMass Amherst: Public Health) – “Designed to explore in an in-depth fashion, ethnographic and cross-cultural approaches to women’s reproductive health issues. Focusing on the gendered, ethnic, culture and class dimensions that underlie the patterning of disease and illness, with special attention to the long-term health effects of racism, poverty, and sexism.”  

PERSPECTIVES IN REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH (NYU: Global Public Health) – “Developing an understanding of the impact of policies and provision of services on the health disparities in reproductive health care, within a framework of reproductive and gender justice.” 

POLITICS OF REPRODUCTION (Rutgers University: Sociology) – “Course that examines the state’s regulation of biological and social reproduction wherein increasing governance of private life, intimacy, and sexuality suggests the blurring of boundaries between public and private interests.”  

RACE, GENDER, AND MEDICINE (Georgetown University: Women’s and Gender Studies) – “In this course, we will explore equity in relation to medicine and health: We ask, “whose health”? and “for the good of whom”? when encountering a diagnosis or a treatment in our readings and in the world around us. Grounded in an exploration of US history and practices – with some transnational and geopolitical relations and contagions – this course examines how relations of power and identity politics are deeply enmeshed with the way medicine and medical care has been conceptualized, practiced, and experienced. We read a range of texts and genres, from historical and theoretical to memoir and documentary film. With what we learn together, we will brainstorm how we can make a better system, and we will contribute to equitable public knowledge online with our final projects.” 

RACE, GENDER, AND SOCIAL INEQUALITY: REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH CARE IN THE UNITED STATES (Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Women’s and Gender Studies) – “This interdisciplinary course will explore the politics of reproductive health care delivery in the United States, with a particular focus on how clinical care is shaped by and in turn shapes social inequality along axes of race, gender, and social class. Each week, we will explore a reproductive health issue from multiple perspectives, drawing on readings from the fields of history, anthropology, sociology, medicine, epidemiology, and bioethics. Throughout the course, we will interrogate how each field conceptualizes and values reproductive health, both explicitly and implicitly.”   

REPRODUCTION, LAW, AND SOCIETY (University of California, Berkeley: Sociology) – “In this seminar, we will examine how social and political forces use laws and legal institutions to promote or restrict bodily autonomy and access to reproductive health care in the United States. Readings will be sourced from sociology, law, public health, and related disciplines so that we can delve deeply into the following topics: abortion access and regulation; contraception, sterilization, and eugenics policies; and pregnancy and respectful maternity care. Depending upon student interest, this course will also cover one or more of the following subjects: reproductive justice in prisons and jails; the Affordable Care Act and the role of contraception access and abortion politics in health reform; LGBTQ health justice; adoption, foster care, and family separation; international law and the right to health framework; or access to reproductive health services in colleges and universities. Throughout the course, we will examine how race, ethnicity, gender, and economics influence access, rights, and justice.” 

REPRODUCTIVE ETHICS (McDaniel College: Philosophy) – “In this course, we will consider a variety of ethical issues at the intersection of public and private life. We will examine problems at every stage of having a child, from whether or not to genetically enhance children, to whether it is permissible to engage a surrogate, to what rights parents have over their children at all. We will work collaboratively to analyze the issues we face, and learn to engage meaningfully with others. In doing so, we will enrich our understanding of the decisions we are faced with when having children, the social and cultural factors which influence these decisions, and the ethical aspect of everyday decisions.”  

REPRODUCTIVE POLITICS IN THE UNITED STATES (Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Women’s and Gender Studies) – “Throughout the semester, we will examine the ways that class, race, and sexuality affect women’s experiences of reproduction, and the role of the state in shaping those experiences, now and over the course of the last century. Many of our topics fit into two broad areas: conflicts over the control of childbearing (sterilization abuse, birth control, and abortion) and conflicts over who deserves to be a mother, especially when the mothers in question face social stigma and lack political power. Other topics include the global market in reproductive services and conflicts over pregnant women’s conduct and what status to accord to fetuses. Class materials will include court opinions, government documents, news stories, op-eds, first-person narratives, web sites, documentaries, and reports as well as academic scholarship.”  

REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH, JUSTICE, AND POLITICS IN AMERICAN HISTORY (La Sierra University) – “In this upper-division course, we will explore reproductive health, justice, and politics in American history. We will examine reproductive issues from a historical and structural perspective to understand how reproduction and reproductive rights intersect with hierarchies of power. We will study the relationship between the physical body and the body politic; reproductive rights and choices; ethics, legislation, and the essentialization of women as reproducers over the course of American history–from the colonial period to the 20th century.” 

REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE (San Jose State University: Justice Studies) – “In this course, we will draw on various theoretical and analytic tools to examine the ways that reproduction is entangled with broader justice issues such as racism, sexism, immigration, incarceration, medicine, civil rights, political economy, population control, and environmentalism.”  

REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE AND RACE (University of Texas at Austin: Asian American Studies/Sociology/Women’s and Gender Studies) – “Course examines the complete physical and mental well-being of women, children, and their families which can potentially be achieved when they have the economic, social and political power, and resources to make health decisions about sexuality and reproduction.”  

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS AND JUSTICE (San Diego State University: Women’s Studies) – “This course examines the history, cultural, and societal attitudes, and politics of reproduction and sexual health in the United States. We will analyze the activities of various political actors and political and social institutions, including the United States Congress, the federal courts, federal regulatory agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), social movements, and medical and health professional communities, as well as the influence of several international conferences and conventions of the United Nations. We will focus on specific topics such as abortion, contraception, sterilization, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), HIV/AIDS and assisted reproductive technology, and how these issues are connected to other social justice issues such as economic justice, environmental justice, immigration, LGBTQ liberation and disability rights.”  

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS/REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE (University of Michigan: Global Feminisms Project) – “In this lesson plan, students will learn that decisions about sexual and reproductive health that seem uniquely personal respond to larger social arrangements and will acknowledge that feminist perspectives around the world emphasize the linkages between the defense of reproductive rights and achieving social justice using the example of debates and legislation around abortion.” 

SEX, SOCIAL JUSTICE, AND THE BILL OF RIGHTS (Georgetown University: Women’s and Gender Studies) – “This seminar will explore the regulation of women’s reproductive lives in the United States through a social justice and constitutional law framework. We will examine the elements of the federal Constitution and the Bill of Rights that have been used by the courts to protect reproductive rights, sexual freedom and parenting rights. In this seminar, we will analyze public policies related to reproduction, contraception, forced sterilization, forced birth, abortion, fetal protectionism (including drug/ alcohol use and other pregnancy regulation), and welfare. Discussion will include issues of social justice, racial justice, health care access, and health care equity; gender, cultural, race and socioeconomic class issues; vulnerable populations such as incarcerated women, immigrants, minors, welfare recipients and persons with intellectual and mental disabilities. We will consider the evolution of relevant federal and state laws from a historical, ethical, social and religious framework. We may consider various international perspectives as well. Please note this seminar will not cover adoption, foster care, or IVF/ assisted reproduction.” 

U.S. ABORTION HISTORY, LAW AND POLITICS (Smith College: Program for the Study of Women, Gender, & Sexuality) – On June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, reversing a half-century-long precedent of constitutional abortion rights. This seminar will explore the history, law and politics of abortion in the U.S. before, during and after Roe. We will examine ideologies, strategies and tactics of the abortion rights movement as well as the anti-abortion movement, focusing in particular on the gender and racial politics of these movements. Topics examined include abortion access, anti-abortion violence, “crisis pregnancy centers,” fetal personhood campaigns, the criminalization of pregnancy, abortion pills, telemedicine abortion and self-managed abortion. 

WOMEN, POVERTY, AND REPRODUCTION (Georgetown University: Women’s and Gender Studies) – “This course will examine the social and economic costs and benefits of access to reproductive health in the United States. Specifically, our goal will be to look at current and historical case studies, and state-by-state comparisons, to examine the impact of access to reproductive health on educational prospects, employment, earning power, the gender gap in pay, marriage and motherhood, mental health, and social and racial justice. In order to do so, we will first explore the changing legal model of reproductive access in the United States today, focusing on contraception, comprehensive sex education and abortion. We will also consider the historical, social, racial and religious context of the regulation of reproduction, after which we will turn to the economic, social, racial and practical impacts of the regulations in effect today. This course is primarily focused on the United States.” 

 RACE, SEXUALITY, AND THE LAW (UCLA Law School) – “We will examine how race, gender, and sexuality intertwine and are shaped by and in turn shape the law. Readings and discussions will draw upon Critical Race Theory, Black Feminist Theory, Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), and abolitionist lenses to examine questions of inter- and intra-group discrimination, criminalization, advocacy, and the possibility for critical legal interventions on issues that implicate race and sexuality simultaneously. Importantly, we will underscore that everyone has a relationship to race and sexuality—dominant and non-dominant groups alike—so that we may begin to understand how laws crafted to address specific racial and sexual identity groups likewise define the bounds of dominant groups’ own understandings of their racial and sexual identities. 
 
We will touch on issues such as differential experiences of policing and surveillance; the experiences of non-White LGBTQ+ people and their relationship to the dominant LGBTQ+ community and movements; critiques of heterosexual male dominance in Black civil rights discourse or White cis-gendered women’s dominance in feminist advocacy including reproductive health access; and feminist and homo-nationalist rationales for the ongoing War on Terror. Questions may include: To what extent do interracial couplings reduce or reflect racial stereotyping, and how are these portrayals borne out in the courts? What are the racialized and sexual-identity assumptions made in discussions on the victims of bias crimes, or perpetrators of gender-based and intimate partner violence, and how does this inform who is protected and who is criminalized? We will approach these issues from a comparative perspective, e.g., what stereotypes exist about Black male sexuality and Asian male sexuality? How are these comparisons useful in analyzing and disrupting various legal regimes, and where do they break down?” 

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS, JUSTICE, AND HEALTH (Northeastern University Law School) – “Introduces topics in reproductive rights and justice and examines how laws and policy shape reproductive lives through an intersectional lens. Addresses legal doctrine, the science of reproduction, and public health research. Critically assesses issues arising from reproductive health law, with particular focus on a reproductive justice framework that centers social, racial, and economic justice. Topics covered may include sexual and reproductive health law as it pertains to forced sterilization, contraception, abortion, pregnancy discrimination, birth and maternal mortality, healthcare in prisons, fertility, social welfare programs, and gender-affirming care.” 

REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE (Columbia University Law School) – “The Reproductive Justice seminar will introduce students to some of the most important and challenging legal and policy questions surrounding the struggles to both defend and expand reproductive justice in the U.S. The class will introduce students to the differences between notions of reproductive rights and reproductive justice; the legal framing of struggles for access to contraception, abortion, and other reproductive health care; the histories of forced sterilization, particularly of women of color; and the reproductive justice movements articulation of a right to nurture children in a safe and healthy environment.” 

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS AFTER DOBBS (Harvard University Law School) – “In this course, students will learn about reproductive rights and justice law, legal strategy, and other considerations lawyers face in a post-Dobbs era, with a specific focus on abortion. We will spend the first class sessions studying various topics in the field of reproductive rights law, starting with the basic doctrinal foundations. We will cover topics like procedure bans, religious refusals, cross-border care, private civil actions, and reproductive justice work and advocacy. We will then shift from reading and discussing case law and will focus on the strategic decisions faced by those seeking to limit Dobbs’ consequences and, conversely, those seeking to defend and expand Dobbs’ reach. The course will also cover legislative advocacy (including ballot initiatives) and how such advocacy can be used in parallel to litigation efforts. Students will read caselaw, briefs and other court pleadings, legal journal articles, research papers and studies, and administrative law documents such as proposed rules and public comments.” 

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS AND JUSTICE (University of Houston Law School) – “In the wake of Dobbs, which overruled Roe v. Wade, the question of whether and how the government should regulate reproduction is more pressing than ever. This course will provide students with the tools to answer this question by exploring the law and theory of reproductive regulation in the United States. Students will learn both historical and contemporary approaches—including reproductive rights and reproductive justice frameworks—equipping them to understand how the law reached this point and how it could change going forward. This course will not focus on abortion alone, but will instead address a broad range of reproductive issues including the regulation of pregnancy, birth, families, assisted reproductive technologies, and more.” 

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS AND JUSTICE (UCLA Law School) – “Roe v. Wade is by far the best-known Supreme Court decision in the United States today. One reason this is so is that the battle over reproductive rights that began in earnest in the 1970s has never died down, and Dobbs certainly didn’t quell the controversy. The right to abortion remains at the center of multiple constitutional and political conflicts in this country; indeed, the right is more contested and controversial now than it was at the time Roe was decided. This seminar will examine the legal regulation of abortion, with an eye toward understanding where we now stand with respect to this issue and how we reached this point. But, importantly, conflict over reproductive justice is not simply about abortion. It is also about the right to procreate and to control one’s sexuality, about the ability to make decisions about family life and family structure that may depart from state-sanctioned models, and about the meaning of autonomy amidst vast social inequality. Increasingly, it is also about reproductive technologies, who can and should have access to such technologies, how such technologies are regulated, and who pays for them.   
 
We will examine legal doctrine in all of these areas. But none of these areas can be understood exclusively in terms of legal doctrine. Current controversies involving reproductive rights and justice are powerfully shaped by the political and social worlds in which they arise, so we will spend time talking about how law has interacted with culture to produce these controversies. Our aim will be to understand how the legal doctrines and practical realities of reproductive rights and justice interact with concerns about race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, class, religion, and politics to shape some of the sharpest and most important legal and political conflicts of our time.” 

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS AND JUSTICE (University of Minnesota Law School) – “This course will introduce you to select topics in the field of reproductive rights and justice. Most people know about reproductive rights because of abortion’s prominence in American politics. Fewer people know about reproductive justice, a different framework for similar issues that explores how reproductive decision-making arose in a system of male control of women’s reproductive capacity and continues in ways that reinforce gender, race, and class-based inequities.  A reproductive justice framework questions the regulation of sexuality, limitations on the ability to have children (e.g., mandatory sterilization and limited access to assisted reproduction), restrictions on the means to prevent pregnancy and childbirth (e.g., restricted access to birth control and abortion), and autonomy in creating and maintaining families of choice.  This conception of justice combines considerations of liberty and autonomy with examination of the structural injustices that arise from biological circumstances and economic inequality.  The Supreme Court decision in Dobbs, overturning the right of access to abortion, brings all of the issues into this course in sharper focus and a substantial part of the course will thus involve asking how will reproductive rights and justice reshape the legal and political landscape in the future.”

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS AND JUSTICE (University of Virginia Law School) – “Reproductive Rights and Justice explores the economic, political, legal, and social factors that influence procreation and parenting. It is attentive to questions of race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, and ability. The course will address the interests of various stakeholders in human reproduction, connecting those interests to contemporary and historical policies such as pro-natalism, population control, individual autonomy, and what is sometimes identified as respect for human life. While our focus will be primarily on the United States, we will also look at comparative regulatory and constitutional systems with regard to particular topics, including issues ranging from contraception to surrogacy to abortion to assisted reproductive technology. Other specific topics include privacy and reproductive rights, pregnancy loss (miscarriage and abortion), and constitutional, biological, economic, and cultural limitations on various rights and practices. These explorations reveal how the regulation of reproduction cuts across existing legal doctrines in family law, health law, criminal law, disability rights and other areas.” 

Additional Academic Resources