The first anniversary of the overturning of Roe v Wade

Carol Sanger

Barbara Aronstein Black Professor of Law
Columbia Law School

in conversation with:

Hillary Schneller

B.A. Barnard, JD Columbia Law School
Senior staff attorney, Center for Reproductive Rights
Co-lead counsel, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

One year ago, the Supreme Court shocked the nation with its Dobbs v. Jackson ruling which overturned Roe v. Wade, the law of the land for nearly 50 years. The issue of abortion and a woman’s right to choose had been one of the hottest topics for the entire half-century before Dobbs, with religious leaders and conservative activists campaigning fiercely to change the law, and women’s groups and pro-choice advocates fighting to protect it. Instead of settling the matter, the Supreme Court’s decision has only fanned the flames further, spreading the debate from Washington DC to individual states.

In the wake of Dobbs, states have rushed to pass new abortion laws, ranging from complete bans with criminal penalties on the one hand to abortion protections in controversial “sanctuary states” on the other. The recent, controversial ruling by a federal judge in Texas invalidating the FDA’s 20-year-old approval of the abortion pill mifepristone in April has added even more fuel to the fire.

On the one-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision, please join us as Prof. Carol Sanger and Hillary Schneller use this occasion to sort through the myriad legal and social repercussions that continue to ripple throughout the country.

Time will be allocated for Q&A.

Carol Sanger is a renowned, award-winning scholar of reproductive rights and constitutional law. Her work is widely cited in scholarly publications and general interest media outlets including The New Yorker, NPR, The New York Times, CBS News, NBC News and Bloomberg BusinessWeek. She is the author of the Harvard University Press book, “About Abortion: Terminating Pregnancy in 21st Century America.”

Sanger writes and teaches courses on law and gender, family law, contracts and the legal profession. Her most recent book, About Abortion: Terminating Pregnancy in the 21st Century, addresses the regulation of abortion and maternal conduct, surrogacy, and the law’s relation to culture.

Since joining the Columbia Law School faculty in 1996, Sanger has been recognized with numerous awards. She has received the Law School’s Willis L.M. Reese Prize for Excellence in Teaching, Columbia University’s Presidential Teaching Award, Social Justice Initiatives’ Outstanding Public Interest Faculty Member of the Year, and the Columbia Law Women’s Association’s Myra Bradwell Award for her commitment to mentoring female law students.

Hillary Schneller is a senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights. She was co-lead counsel on the Dobbs case one year ago. Schneller has also litigated abortion ban cases and challenges to targeted regulations of abortion providers in Arkansas, Kansas, and Texas. She works closely with the Center’s human rights team to advance work on maternal health in the U.S.

Before joining the Center, she was an Equal Justice Works fellow at the National Women’s Law Center, where her work focused on addressing gender discrimination in health care. She received her J.D. from Columbia Law School and her B.A. from Barnard College.