Unraveling reproductive rights as a legacy of control
Dr. Goodwin’s insights illuminate not just the past, but the persistent patterns of control that shape reproductive policies today, underscoring the urgent need for legal and societal reform to address these inequities and promote true reproductive justice for all.
The David B. Goodman Fellowship, established in memory of the late David B. Goodman, Q.C., brings, on an annual basis, a distinguished lawyer or judge to the U of T Faculty of Law for a few days of teaching and informal discussions with the student body and the Faculty. The intention of the fellowship is for the Goodman Fellow to bring to the Faculty “the benefit of insights and ideas gained from long experience in the practical application of the law and, on the other hand, himself or herself be refreshed by a short return to the academic legal community.”
Previous Goodman Fellows have included, amongst others, former Supreme Court Justice Marshall Rothstein, Brian Bowman, former mayor of Winnipeg and U of T alumnus and former president of the Students’ Law Society at U of T Law, and Catherine O’Regan, United Nationals Internal Justice Council Chairperson.
This year, acclaimed bioethicist, constitutional law scholar, and prolific author Professor Michele Bracther Goodwin was selected as the Goodman Fellow. Dr. Goodwin earned her J.D. at Boston College Law School and both her LL.M and S.J.D at the University of Wisconsin. Read her impressive biography on the Georgetown Law website. Dr. Goodwin is the Linda D. and Timothy J. O’Neill Professor of Constitutional Law and Global Health Policy at Georgetown Law. She is also the Co-Faculty Director at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. Professor Goodwin previously was a Chancellor’s Professor at the University of California, Irvine and founding director of the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy. She was the Abraham Pinanski Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Goodwin’s accomplishments are numerous. She is the 2023 recipient of the California Women’s Law Center Pursuit of Justice Award and was honoured in 2022 by the American Bar Association (“ABA”) with the Margaret Brent Award. In 2020–21, she was bestowed the Distinguished Senior Faculty Award for Research, the highest honour bestowed by the University of California. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute, a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and a Fellow of the Hastings Center, a preeminent organization in the field of bioethics.
Dr. Goodwin has profoundly shaped the field of health law. She directed the first ABA accredited health law program in the nation and established the first law center focused on race and bioethics. Her scholarship, featured in leading journals such the Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, New York Law Review, and Northwestern Law Review, tackles pressing issues like freedom of speech; religious liberty; slavery; equal protection; reproductive rights; and systemic discrimination.
This year, Dr. Goodwin taught the Intensive Course: Reproductive Rights and Justice. I was one of the students in this course.
With a total of only 14 hours of class time over the span of a week, Dr. Goodwin delivered one of the most, if not the most, engaging and impactful courses I have ever taken. The carefully curated content and Dr. Goodwin’s dynamic teaching style—-marked by her vast knowledge and ability to foster meaningful discussion—-created an incredible learning environment. Dr. Goodwin created an environment, wherein she encouraged open dialogue, encouraging students to answer questions and share their perspectives.
The course description speaks to the breadth of the topics covered. The course explored a wide range of topics, including abortion, personhood, artificial reproduction, and fetal protection laws. rounded in historical context, the course traced developments from early matrilineality and hypodescent laws to the eugenics era and contemporary debates on sex equality and racial justice. This historical lens was particularly illuminating as it revealed how deeply entrenched societal structures and biases continue to shape contemporary reproductive policies.
Unlike the long essay typical of intensive course evaluations, students were evaluated on the basis of four policy position papers of about 625 to 750 words each. By writing these papers, students had the opportunity to engage with a topic of their choice after doing the assigned reading.
In the first class, Dr. Goodwin encouraged us to adopt a kaleidoscopic view—examining topics from multiple angles, turning the lens repeatedly to uncover new perspectives. Dr. Goodwin’s lectures extended far beyond the assigned text of her book Policing The Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood. She provided an in-depth understanding of the Constitution of the United States and its historical underpinnings, offering crucial context for each topic discussed. Dr. Goodwin went above and beyond to introduce ideas and examples outside of the text, illustrating the real-world implications of the issues at hand. For instance, she taught us about surrogacy and ‘baby farming’ practices in countries like India and Thailand, shedding light on the exploitation and ethical concerns tied to global reproductive justice. Through this expansive approach, she consistently connected historical narratives to contemporary debates. With each turn of the kaleidoscope, Dr. Goodwin challenged us to think critically, question assumptions, and engage deeply with nuanced and often uncomfortable realities.
Dr. Goodwin’s lectures springboarded off of and supplanted the first six chapters of her book Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood, acclaimed for its incisive analysis of women’s reproductive justice. Although the book was published in 2020, prior to the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood v Casey—-two landmark decisions that decriminalized abortion—-Dr. Goodwin accurately predicted the future trajectory of women’s reproductive justice in the United States. Drawing on historical realities dating back to the period of slavery in the United States, Dr. Goodwin points out patterns pertaining to the realities of women’s access to reproductive justice, including and extending beyond access to abortion, pregnancy, and motherhood. Her insights remain true today and will continue to resonate during Donald Trump’s presidency and beyond.
In class, Dr. Goodwin often spoke of “unstitching” and then “unravelling the thread.” With each new topic, she would meticulously dissect a phenomenon, breaking it into its fundamental components and revealing the underlying truths with remarkable clarity. She did this masterfully, drawing on various sources of knowledge such as primary sources, empirical data, and historical narratives and anecdotes. One particularly memorable discussion pertained to the way in which the state polices and disproportionately incarcerates Black women, particularly Black mothers, creating cycles of inequity that are difficult to escape—this mirrors patterns of control during the period of slavery.
Dr. Goodwin’s David B. Goodman lecture, titled Citizenship: The Long and Complicated Arc of Women’s Equality, on January 9, 2025 unraveled the thread of women’s citizenship and its persistent ties to sex inequality. The lecture was recorded and can be found on the U of T Law YouTube landing page (I highly recommend watching it if you did not have the chance to attend Dr. Goodwin’s lecture). She demonstrated how this fractured citizenship continues to influence reproductive health, justice, sexual violence, economic equality, and more, underscoring the interconnectedness of these issues and their deep historical roots.
Drawing on her book Policing the Womb, Dr. Goodwin began her talk with the harrowing story of Marlise Munroe, a pregnant woman who was declared brain-dead after suffering a pulmonary embolism. Despite her family’s wishes to remove Munroe from life support, Texas law mandated the continuation of medical intervention solely to sustain the pregnancy. Munroe’s treatment exemplified the ways women are often reduced to mere incubators in legal and social frameworks. She analogized Munroe’s story to The Handmaid’s Tale, emphasizing its relevance to the real and pressing situation in the United States. The book, a culmination of 10 years of research, interviews, and work as an expert witness, was published in 2020 as a warning about the trajectory of women’s reproductive rights.
Dr. Goodwin examined the historical roots of reproductive oppression, including coverture laws, where women’s legal identities were subsumed under their husbands’ authority, as well as the writings of Blackstone and Hale, which denied women any identity outside of marriage. These principles were invoked in Dobbs, marking a return to outdated and patriarchal legal theories. She also highlighted the historical denial of women’s reproductive autonomy, tracing it back to the abolitionist era when the criminalization of abortion intersected with efforts to maintain racial hierarchies.
Historical accounts, such as the story of Margaret Garner—who tragically killed her children to spare them the horrors of slavery—underscored the intersections of personhood, citizenship, and systemic oppression. Dr. Goodwin connected these narratives to contemporary challenges, illustrating how the past continues to inform present day struggles for equality. Garner’s story, in particular, served as a sobering reminder of the cost of denying personhood and autonomy to women, highlighting how these patterns echo through time.
Dr. Goodwin highlighted the U.S. Supreme Court’s reliance in Dobbs on archaic frameworks that perpetuate control over women and marginalized groups, echoing the historical injustices of slavery and coverture. In particular, Dr. Goodwin emphasized the role of Mississippi, tying the state’s historical legacy of racial and gender oppression to its pivotal role in challenging Roe v Wade, as the legislation contested in Dobbs originated there. She pointed out that Dobbs represents how the present frequently mirrors historical patterns of denying women autonomy and equality under the guise of protecting societal norms. Dr. Goodwin emphasized that “the scale of the harms brought about by the post-Dobbs era cannot be described as anything less than significant and drastic.” Following the lecture, Dr. Goodwin addressed questions from the audience, students and Faculty members alike. Professor Rebecca Cook asked Dr. Goodwin her thoughts on the criticisms of the reproductive rights movement as being fragmented whilst overly focused on the abortion perspective. In response, Dr. Goodwin answered the question, and concluded the lecture with a call for a renewed approach to reproductive justice, urging the movement to expand beyond abortion rights to address broader systemic inequities, including fetal protection laws and inequitable pregnancy outcomes. She stressed the importance of building on the foundational work of Black women in the reproductive justice movement and advocated for redefining citizenship and personhood to ensure true equality—a reproductive justice 2.0 is needed in this post-Dobbs era.