Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies

Michele Bratcher Goodwin
(Chancellor’s Professor of Law; Director, Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy, University of California, Irvine)

Virtual Event – Register Here to Receive Zoom URL

In this talk, Professor Goodwin addresses the escalation of criminal punishments directed at pregnant women in the United States. Her talk reflects more than ten years of research addressing the intersection of mass incarceration and reproductive health and rights. Professor Goodwin offers a deeper look at the ways in which reproduction has become a site of increasing state surveillance and punishment.

Michele Bratcher Goodwin is a Chancellor’s Professor at the University of California, Irvine, and founding director of the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy. She is the recipient of the 2020-21 Distinguished Senior Faculty Award for Research. Her books include Policing The Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood (2020); Biotechnology, Bioethics, and The Law (2015); Baby Markets: Money and the Politics of Creating Families (2010); and Black Markets: The Supply and Demand of Body Parts (2006). Professor Goodwin’s constitutional law scholarship appears in or is forthcoming in the Harvard Law Review, California Law Review, Chicago Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Michigan Law Review, New York University Law Review,  Northwestern Law Review,  University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and Yale Law Journal, among others. She is also the host and executive producer of the podcast, On the Issues with Michele Goodwin, at Ms. magazine.

This multi-year series responds to current challenges to rational public debate. Following Part II of the series in 2020-2021 entitled “Data & Democracy,” and Part I in 2019-2020 “Race and the Promise of Participation,” the 2021-22 speakers series turns to the question of transforming institutions in public life. From public health and the university to museums and monuments, institutions have received increased scrutiny and renewed attention in recent years. In this series, humanities scholars and practitioners reflect on institutions and their transformation. The series brings together speakers who share insights on global healthcare, public monuments, African American heritage, and the university. From diverse interdisciplinary perspectives, speakers will share their efforts to reimagine institutions and generate their transformation.