Prof Michelle Oberman - The First Year: Findings from an Ethnographic Study of the Impact of an Abortion Ban on Clinicians in a (Very) Red State

Wednesday 13 December

4.30pm-5.30pm

online - Zoom registration

Speaker: Professor Michelle Oberman, Katharine and George Alexander Professor of Law, Santa Clara University School of Law

Chair: Dr Emma Milne, Associate Professor in Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, Durham Law School

Abstract
Drawing on findings from an ongoing study of 25 doctors practicing medicine in a US state where abortion is criminalized, Professor Oberman describes one of the most immediate and problematic impacts of U.S. abortion bans: clinicians’ hesitation to share abortion information. After explaining why clinicians are duty-bound to provide all-options counseling, and describing the limited legal risks of providing such counseling, her study explores the so-called "chilling effect," and its impact on doctors and patients, alike.

Speaker bio
Michelle Oberman, Katharine and George Alexander Professor of Law, is an internationally recognized scholar on a wide range of legal and ethical issues arising at the intersection of sex, pregnancy, motherhood and criminal law. For the past decade, she has studied the impact of abortion regulation in countries with widely divergent abortion laws. Her work in El Salvador, along with other countries and a range of US jurisdictions, informs her 2018 book, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Frontlines of the Abortion War from El Salvador to Oklahoma.
Her current work focuses on what changes on the ground when U.S. abortion law changes on the books.