5 Experts Available for Timely Analysis on SCOTUS Mississippi Abortion Case
On December 1st, the Supreme Court is hearing arguments against a Mississippi law that bans nearly all abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy and directly challenges Roe v. Wade. To provide expert analysis on the Supreme Court hearing and the Mississippi law's implications for reproductive health and rights in the United States, these researchers (including one in Mississippi) are available and happy to provide commentary and analysis.
Baker is co-founder and former co-director of the Five College Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice Program. Baker’s research centers on the intersections of gender and race in law and policy. She has taught, researched and written on reproductive rights for the last two decades.
Quote: "With state lawmakers passing an unprecedented and ever-increasing number of restrictions on access to abortion health care, and a conservative anti-abortion supermajority on the Supreme Court poised to overturn the constitutional right to abortion that has stood for almost 50 years, women’s lives, health and well-being are at dire risk. Instead of addressing the country’s appalling maternal mortality rate—one of the highest in the developed world—U.S. lawmakers’ unrelenting focus on restricting abortion is a shocking testament to how far we still have to go to respect and protect women’s human rights in the United States.”
Daniel's research focuses on the relationships between reproductive politics and social inequality. Daniel is interested in the connections between political discourse, popular media, and advocacy work related to adolescent pregnancy and sexual health education, and how these influence distributions of resources and wealth.
Howard's areas of expertise include the criminalization of pregnancy and the regulation of abortion in the United States. Her book, The Pregnancy Police: Conceiving Crime, Arresting Personhood, is forthcoming with the University of California Press.
Quote: "The Dobbs case is another blatant attempt by anti-choice legislators to undermine the legalization of abortion at the Federal level. The implications of the court's decision in this case are huge, and will impact the rights and personhood of anybody with the capacity for pregnancy, whether or not they seek abortion care."
Kelly is a sociologist studying reproductive politics, specifically the crisis pregnancy center movement and Mississippi abortion politics. The latter is focused on race and religion, and involves an ethnographic and interview study with anti-abortion activists, abortion rights activists, and women who sought abortions while living in Mississippi.
Quote: "Dobbs has the potential to set women back fifty years in terms of social and economic equality. Overturning Roe will exacerbate existing problems such as poverty and racial inequality and would deny women moral autonomy and full citizenship. The state is attempting to dictate the most important and personal of decisions of women across the nation."
White leads projects focused on the Deep South and Texas, including the Mississippi Reproductive Health Access Project and the Texas Policy Evaluation Project. Her research focuses on abortion, family planning services provided at publicly funded clinics, postpartum contraceptive use, and vasectomy.
Quote: "Basing reproductive health policy on research and evidence can help ensure reproductive health services and policies successfully promote equitable, evidence-based, and patient-centered care.”