Introduction: Banishing Women: The Law and Politics of Abortion Travel

Abstract

In her Introduction to the inaugural issue of the Columbia Journal of and Law (JGL), Ruth Bader Ginsburg traced the gendered history of Columbia Law School from 1928, when the first female student was admitted, to 1990, when women composed nearly half the student body. Reflecting on this change, she asked, Does women's participation affect the way law business is conducted, and the shape and direction of legal development? In pursuing this large question, Justice Ginsburg contemplated feminist movement that would offer a spacious for all who have the imagination and determination to work for the full realization of human potential. (1) On the twenty-fifth anniversary of JGL, we are delighted to introduce set of essays that grapple with these enduring questions of feminism and citizenship in the context of reproductive rights and justice. These essays are based on talks delivered at recent panel entitled, Banishing Women: The Law and Politics of Abortion Travel, cosponsored by Columbia Law School and the Center for Reproductive Rights. We would like to thank each speaker for their contribution to the panel, including David Brown, Staff Attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights; Joanna Erdman, Assistant Professor of Law, and MacBain Chair in Health Law and Policy at Dalhousie University; Yasmine Ergas, Lecturer in the Discipline of International and Public Affairs at the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs; and Madeline Gomez, Reproductive Justice Fellow at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health. A special thank you to Carol Sanger, the Barbara Aronstein Black Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, for moderating the event and encouraging this work. In convening this panel, we aimed to promote greater thinking and discussion about among scholars and advocates. We use the term abortion travel rather than abortion (or medical) tourism to avoid the consumerist and individualist connotations of the latter term. We are interested instead in the structural forces--both legal and social--that compel many women to leave their home jurisdictions to access abortion. (2) We describe this phenomenon as form of banishment to signal the punitive and stigmatizing effects of laws that force women to to terminate pregnancy safely. When anti-abortion advocates work to make county, province, state, or nation abortion-free, they register as politically treacherous act. The women, partners, and families who must pack their bags and long distances to access are reminded at each step of their journey that they are undeserving of medical care at home. Abortion is crucial area of inquiry because it is of the key ways that women navigate, resist, and sometimes succumb to restrictive laws and policies. In the pre-Roe era, women in the United States with resources travelled to Mexico, or as far as Japan or Sweden, to terminate their pregnancies safely. (3) Today, targeted regulations of providers (TRAP laws) have incrementally reduced access, forcing many women to hundreds of miles, sometimes across state lines, to access constitutionally protected health services. (4) The Supreme Court recently addressed burdens in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, decision striking down Texas House Bill 2 (H.B. 2), of the most restrictive TRAP bills in recent memory. Research from the Texas Policy Evaluation Project had shown that many women faced increased burdens due to clinic closures since the introduction of H.B. 2. Twenty-five percent of women whose nearest clinic closed lived more than 139 miles from facility and ten percent lived more than 256 miles away. (5) The Court held that increased driving distances to access were one additional burden which, when taken together with others that the closings brought about, and when viewed in light of the virtual absence of any health benefit, lead us to conclude that the record adequately supports the District Court's 'undue burden' conclusion. …