GSFS 258 - Abortion Before and After Dobbs: The Rise of the Right and the Failures of Feminism

HC ARHU CD

2 credits
The Dobbs decision, decades in preparation among the reactionary right, shows that state-afforded rights are in fact tenuous. Often, Roe v. Wade is held up as the beginning of an era where the gender and sexual violence of controlling birth, pregnancy, and gestation was waning. Yet Roe always had feminist critics, with abortion having uneven accessibility along racialized and class-based lines. In this module, we will look at the creation of the “abortion issue” in the context of the women’s and gay liberation movement, a test case for the limits of liberal and reformist approaches to struggle against state-sponsored gender and sexual violence. The course will have two parts: first, a series of speakers who will discuss what an abortion really is outside of the distractions of mainstream political discourse; the collective organizing that has made abortion possible before, during, and after Roe; and the history of racialized control over birth and death. Second, students will help organize a spring symposium on reproductive health, forming discussion panels, workshops, selecting speakers, and planning the details of the event.

This course is appropriate for new students.