How does viewing abortion through a human rights lens shift our analysis, understanding, and approach to this highly contested issue? What is the relationship between human rights and reproductive justice, and how can these approaches help bridge the diversity of viewpoints about abortion? How might embedding abortion in the human rights framework contribute to the global fight against authoritarianism and in defense of democracy more broadly? 

These and other questions will be considered by a panel of national leaders in the reproductive justice, racial justice, and human rights movements at “Abortion as a Human Right: A Dialogue.” This event will take place on Thursday, March 28, 2024, at 6 p.m. in the Carroll Room, Julia McWilliams Child ’34 Campus Center, and will feature:

Byllye Y. Avery, Founder, Black Women’s Health Imperative

Amy Hagstrom Miller, Founder, Whole Woman’s Health abortion clinics 

Regina Davis Moss, Executive Director, In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda

Rosalind Petchesky ’64, Distinguished Professor Emerita, Hunter College, and Founder, International Reproductive Rights Research Action Group 

Loretta Ross, Associate Professor of the Study of Women & Gender, Smith College and Co-creator of Reproductive Justice Theory

Marlene Gerber Fried, Professor Emerita of Philosophy at Hampshire College and the Founder of Collective Power for Reproductive Justice, will moderate the panel.

This event is organized by fellows in the 2023–24 Kahn Institute long-term project, (Re)visioning Human Rights, Democracy and the Liberal Arts, which serves as an unbounded space for developing new research, teaching, and practice models at the intersection of liberal arts education, human rights, and the future of democracies. 

Sponsored by the Smith College Kahn Institute for Liberal Arts, Smith College Special Collections, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Free and open to the public. All viewpoints are welcome. Light refreshments will be available following the lecture. 

For disability access information or accommodation requests, please call 413-585-2407. To request a sign language interpreter, email [email protected] at least ten days before the event.