Apr 21 2022

Abortion Futures? Unpacking Access and Reproductive Justice in Illinois

April 21, 2022

4:00 PM - 5:30 PM

Location

Zoom

Calendar

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As reproductive justice advocates, activists, and scholars anticipate the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the 1973 landmark decision in Roe v. Wade, we gather to talk about the challenges and implications of federal rulings for abortion access in Illinois, especially as they affect women who are historically marginalized. We also consider how states like Illinois are poised to shape the conversation around access, what we learn or lose when public understanding of the national and local contexts of struggle for reproductive justice is framed through the lens of Roe v. Wade, and what lies ahead for activists and for those seeking abortions.

Speakers:

  • Allison Cowett, Medical Director, Family Planning Associates Medical Group; Health Systems Clinician, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
  • Yamani Yansá Hernandez, former Executive Director, National Network of Abortion Funds
  • Megan Jeyifo, Executive Director, Chicago Abortion Fund
  • Teri McMurtry-Chubb, Associate Dean for Research & Faculty Development, UIC Law
  • Kim D. Ricardo, Professor of Law, UIC Law

Moderated by Elena Gutiérrez, Associate Professor, UIC Gender and Women's Studies and Latin American and Latino Studies.

Free and open to the public.
CART live captioning will be provided. Please send any questions or access requests to wlrc@uic.edu.

Co-sponsored by UIC Gender and Women's Studies, UIC Library, UIC Law, and UIC Women’s Law Caucus.

 

About our moderator:

Elena Rebeca Gutiérrez is an Associate Professor in Gender and Women's Studies and Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago. Dr. Gutiérrez earned her PhD in Sociology from the University of Michigan in 1999 and is a scholar of Latina/o Health, reproductive and sexual health politics, gender and social activism. She was most recently a fellow at the UIC Great Cities Institute where she developed a community-based rubric of research on Latina reproductive health.

Her current research focuses on the history of Latinas in the birth control movement, the politics of Latina health in Chicago, reproductive justice for Latina youth, mental health, and the effects of immigration reform on healthcare access. Her book publications include Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice with Jael Silliman, Marlene Gerber Fried, and Loretta Ross (Boston: South End Press, October 2004) which was the Recipient of the 2005 Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award in the area of bigotry and human rights, and Fertile Matters: The Politics of Mexican Origin Women's Reproduction (University of Texas Press, forthcoming January 2008). Fertile Matters documents the involuntary sterilization of Mexican-origin women in Los Angeles in the 1970s and illuminates the ways in which political, social and racial anxieties shaped the construction of the "problem" of Mexican origin women's fertility and reproduction.

In her past 16 years as an activist for women's health and reproductive justice, Dr. Gutiérrez has served on the boards of and worked as a consultant with the National Latina Health Organization, SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective, the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, and Mujeres Latinas en Acción.

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Contact

WLRC
wlrc@uic.edu

Date posted

Apr 4, 2022

Date updated

Apr 13, 2022

Speakers

Allison Cowett | Medical Director, Family Planning Associates Medical Group | Health Systems Clinician, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine

Dr. Allison Cowett (she/her) is the Medical Director of Family Planning Associates Medical Group, a Chicago family planning clinic and one of the largest independent abortion care facilities in the country. Dr. Cowett is a faculty member in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She is a graduate of the University Of Rochester School Of Medicine and completed her Ob/Gyn residency, fellowship in Family Planning and a Master in Public Health at Northwestern. Dr. Cowett is active in community wide efforts to enhance access to family planning services for women in marginalized populations and to forward a legislative agenda that champions women’s reproductive freedom.

Yamani Yansá Hernandez | Former Executive Director | National Network of Abortion Funds

Yamani Yansa Hernandez (she/they) is a visionary and strategic, queer, Black leader committed to radical compassion and healing justice. Yamani has worked in non-profit organizations across sectors for 25 years and led reproductive health, rights and justice organizations for the last decade. Throughout her interdisciplinary career, she has used a creative and analytical skill-set to transform organizations, relationships and environments. Currently she is writing a memoir and missives on leadership while coaching other leaders through some of the most challenging quandaries of our time. Most recently Yamani was the Executive Director of the National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF) from 2015-2022. Abortion funds are grassroots organizations working to remove financial and logistical barriers to abortion access by centering people who have abortions and organizing for systemic change at the intersections of racial, economic and reproductive justice. During her tenure, abortion funds became a household name and both the national and local organizations grew dramatically in size, framing and capacity to build cultural and political power with a network of thousands of members. Before joining NNAF, Hernandez served as Executive Director of the state-based Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health (ICAH).

Megan Jeyifo | Executive Director | Chicago Abortion Fund

Megan Jeyifo (she/her) is a mama who has had abortions. She currently serves as the Executive Director of the Chicago Abortion Fund (CAF). Megan is an expert in navigating onerous restrictions and barriers to abortion care across the Midwest, informed by conversations with thousands of CAF callers and her own experiences obtaining care, and supports people with tenacity and softness. She leads a thoughtful, nimble, and loving team as they work together towards a world where everyone has the resources they need to create lives, families, and communities that thrive and where a full range of reproductive choices, including abortion, are accessible and affirmed. Megan is a storyteller with We Testify, an organization dedicated to the leadership and representation of people who’ve had abortions, increasing the spectrum of abortion storytellers in the public sphere, and shifting the way the media understands the context and complexity of accessing abortion care. Megan has spoken publicly about her experiences accessing abortion as a young person navigating parental consent laws and by plane. She has been quoted in outlets such as The New Yorker, National Public Radio, Wall Street Journal, The Nation, Rewire, CNN, and the Chicago Tribune.

Teri McMurtry-Chubb | Associate Dean for Research & Faculty Development; Professor | UIC Law

Teri McMurtry-Chubb researches, teaches, and writes in the areas of critical rhetoric, discourse and genre analysis, and legal history. She has lectured nationally on structural discrimination in educational institutions and the workplace, and is a leader in designing curricula to facilitate diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. Professor McMurtry-Chubb has taught at Loyola Law School-LA, California State Polytechnic University at Pomona, The University of Iowa, Des Moines Area Community College, Drake University School of Law, and Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies at Western Washington University. While at Fairhaven College, she served as an Assistant Professor of Law and Hegemony Studies, and was the co-founder and first director of Fairhaven’s Center for Law, Diversity and Justice. Prior to returning to academia, Professor McMurtry-Chubb was a Civil Litigation Associate at a mid-sized law firm in Des Moines, IA. At the time she joined the firm, she was the first person of color ever to be hired there and one of two African American women in the entire state of Iowa in private practice. She practiced in the areas of insurance defense, employment discrimination, and employee benefits involving the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). Before entering private practice, McMurtry-Chubb became the first African American woman hired as a law clerk for the 5th Judicial District of Iowa.

Kim D. Ricardo | Professor of Law | UIC Law

Kim D. Ricardo is a graduate of University of California at Berkeley, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, William S. Richardson School of Law, and Georgetown University Law Center. She joined the UIC Law faculty in 2008 and has also been Visiting Professor at Seattle Law, UNLV, and DePaul. She is currently a Fulbright Scholar in Argentina hosted by the Ambrosio Lucas Gioja Institute of Legal and Social Research at the University of Buenos Aires, Faculty of Law. At UIC, she teaches Criminal Law & Procedure, Lawyering Skills, and seminar classes on race, gender, and class. Professor Ricardo’s scholarly writing considers redress and reparations law, policy, and social movements in the United States and her most recent article considers U.S. and Argentinian abortion law and policy from a comparative perspective.