Following this lesson, learners will be able to:
- Relate how obstetric violence is a reproductive rights issue
Our Guest
Farah Diaz-Tello is Senior Counsel & Legal Director for If/When/How, where she helps develop and execute litigation strategy, contributes legal analysis and drafting expertise to assist state and grassroots partners in reaching their policy goals, and provides legal information and training to reproductive rights, health, and justice activists. She is a frequent speaker and guest lecturer in activist and academic forums, and is sought by media for her insights. Farah continues and expands the work she began in 2016 at the SIA Legal Team, which joined forces with If/When/How in 2019. Prior to the SIA Legal Team, Farah worked at National Advocates for Pregnant Women, where she established and helmed programs in human rights and birth justice. Her publications for scholarly and popular press address criminalization of pregnancy outcomes, economic coercion in childbirth, obstetric violence, and reproductive issues in pop culture.
Farah’s 2016 paper Invisible Wounds: Obstetric violence in the U.S. is part of the pre-work for the course and is linked in your course downloads.
Background on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization
With Dobbs, the U.S. Supreme Court repealed Roe v. Wade, the decision which had previously protected the right to abortion (with certain limitations) at the federal level. By removing this higher-level protection, the Dobbs decision essentially returned the question of abortion to the states, instantly reverting it to a patchwork of laws and policies across the country that create dramatic variability in access to abortion (Guttmacher Institute: Interactive Map: U.S. Abortion Policies & Access After Roe), criminalization of people providing or seeking abortion (New Yorker: The Dobbs Decision Has Unleashed Legal Chaos for Doctors and Patients), and human rights implications for pregnant and birthing people.
You can read the pivotal Supreme Court decision via your course downloads below.