Contemporary Challenges to Reproductive Rights in the US Courts

Transitional Justice Institute: Public Lectures and Events

At this TJI public seminar, part of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Festival, Prof Rachel Rebouché discussed the most recent challenges to reproductive rights in the US.

Dean Rebouché shared her thoughts on recent legislation and court cases including cases that are making their way through the court system in the United States, and which may wind up before the Supreme Court of the United States.

Rachel Rebouché is the Interim Dean of Temple University Beasley School of Law and the James E. Beasley Professor of Law. Prior to her appointment as Interim Dean, she was the Associate Dean for Research, a position she held from 2017 to 2021. She is also a Faculty Fellow at Temple’s Center for Public Health Law Research.

Dean Rebouché is a leading scholar in reproductive health law, feminist legal theory, and family law. She is an author of Governance Feminism: An Introduction and an editor of Governance Feminism: Notes from the Field. She is also the editor of Feminist Judgments: Family Law Opinions Rewritten, published by Cambridge University Press, and an author of the sixth edition of the casebook, Family Law, with Professors Leslie Harris and June Carbone. In addition, she is writing a book on reproductive health law that is under contract with NYU Press and editing a collection of essays for Law & Contemporary Problems on the pandemic’s effects on issues in contract law.

Dean Rebouché has served as a co-investigator on two grant-funded research projects related to reproductive health, one housed at the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health and another funded by the World Health Organization. Her recent research also includes articles in law reviews and in peer-reviewed journals on relational contracts, gestational surrogacy, prenatal genetic testing and genetic counseling, collaborative divorce, parental involvement laws, and international reproductive rights.

Dean Rebouché received a J.D. from Harvard Law School, an LL.M. from Queen’s University, Belfast, and a B.A. from Trinity University. Prior to law school, she worked as a researcher for the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and the Human Rights Centre at Queen’s University, Belfast. After law school, Dean Rebouché clerked for Justice Kate O’Regan on the Constitutional Court of South Africa and practiced law in Washington, D.C., where she served as an associate director of adolescent health programs at the National Partnership for Women & Families (formerly, the Women’s Legal Defense Fund) and as a Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellow at the National Women’s Law Center.

Leah Rea (PhD researcher) and Dr Joanna McMinn will co-chair this event, with Prof Siobhán Wills (TJI Director) making opening remarks.