Civil Disagreement Series: Reproduction and Abortion in America

Date: 

Thursday, December 1, 2022, 4:00pm

Location: 

Zoom

CD

Debates about reproductive rights and related policies raise critical questions about fundamental rights and liberties; issues of social, gender, and racial equality; access to health care; state, federal, and judicial power; and more. The recent Dobbs ruling has brought these complex and interconnected questions even further to the fore of our public discourse. 

For some, the shift towards a more conservative policy on reproductive rights is a hard-won moral victory that better protects the rights of women, children, and families while affirming the values of justice and religious liberty. Others view greater restrictions on reproductive rights and access to reproductive health care as oppressive, discriminatory, and dangerous, with a disproportionate impact on low-income women and women of color. 

We are pleased to host the following panelists for a discussion on this thorny and deeply personal issue: 

The conversation will be moderated by Jane Kamensky, Professor of History at Harvard University and the Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation Director of the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. 

The Civil Disagreement Series brings together academics, practitioners, and policymakers with different viewpoints to discuss pressing and difficult topics. The goal of the series is to facilitate conversations that people may feel they can’t otherwise have, model thoughtful, reflective engagement on hard issues, and support productive conversations on fraught subjects involving a wide diversity of viewpoints.

This event will bring together a range of speakers who hold differing views on reproductive rights, informed by their various experiences. The aim is to discuss urgent questions and challenges of this moment and explore the nuanced dimensions of conflict and alignment in this area of American life. The panel will be framed in a way that is meant to invite conversation across different perspectives, while acknowledging the stakes of the topic. 

This is an online-only event, and will take place via Zoom webinar. Please register to attend using this link

Harvard University welcomes individuals with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. Live Closed Captioning services will be available for this event. If you would like to request additional accommodations or have questions about those provided, please contact Alex Ostrowski Schilling, Events & Digital Programming Coordinator, at aostrowskischilling@fas.harvard.edu in advance of the event. Please note that the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics will make every effort to secure services, but that these are subject to availability. 

The Intercollegiate Civil Disagreement Partnership (ICDP) is a consortium of ethics centers from five institutions (St. Philip’s College, San Antonio, TX; Santa Fe College, Gainesville, FL; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; California State University, Bakersfield, CA; Stanford University, Stanford, CA) committed to reducing polarization by teaching students how to connect across political difference. 

Speaker Bios 

Kimberly Mutcherson is an award-winning professor whose scholarship focuses on reproductive justice, bioethics, and family and health law. She has presented her scholarship nationally and internationally and publishes extensively on assisted reproduction, families, and the law. She was a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics and the Columbia Law School Center for Gender and Sexuality Law. 

Monica Sparks is noted as one of the 50 Most Influential women in the West Michigan region. She is a Rotarian Servant Leader and is currently serving in her second term as a Kent County Commissioner. Monica is a wife, mother, and cancer survivor. She is the Founder of Community of Hearts, a non-profit that helps to create mental health advocates with training available in English, Spanish and Vietnamese. Monica is also a Small Business Owner, licensed State of Michigan Real Estate Broker, and Certified SCORE Business Mentor. She serves locally on various boards and committees, including as Chair of the Kent County Black Caucus; Statewide on the Michigan Association of Counties; and Nationally as the first Black President of Democrats for Life of America. Monica lives by the mantra, "You cannot lead by pointing your finger, you must lead by moving your feet!” 

Daniel K. Williams is a professor of history at the University of West Georgia and the author of several books on the politics of religion and abortion in the United States.  His books include God's Own Party: The Making of the Christian Right and Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement before Roe v. Wade, both of which were published with Oxford University Press.  His writings have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, and Christianity Today.  He and his wife (Dr. Nadya Williams) live in Carrollton, Georgia.  

Rob Schenck is an ordained evangelical minister and president of The Dietrich Bonhoeffer Institute in Washington, DC. After 35 years as an activist on the religious right, Rob began a decade-long spiritual and intellectual journey leading him to break with his religious community on abortion, same-sex marriage, and political support for Donald Trump. He tells his story in a memoir, Costly Grace: An Evangelical Minister's Rediscovery of Faith, Hope and Love (HarperCollins), and blogs at revrobschenck.com. Rob holds degrees in Bible and Theology, Religion, Christian Ministry, and Church and State. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia, with his wife of 45 years, Cheryl E. Schenck, a psychotherapist in private practice.  

Jane Kamensky is professor of history at Harvard University and the Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation Director of the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She is a historian of the Atlantic world and the United States with particular interests in the histories of family, culture, and everyday life.