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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center">Please
join us this
Wednesday for the first Law Café of the Semester:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><b>Poor
Women, Poor
Choices:<span style=""> </span><i>Relf v. Weinberger</i>,
Race, and the Dilemma of Reproductive Policy in the 1970s<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center">Dr.
Gregory M. Dorr,
Visiting Assistant Professor in Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought
at <st1:place><st1:PlaceName>Amherst</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType>College</st1:PlaceType></st1:place></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center">Wednesday
February
25th at <st1:time hour="16" minute="0">4pm</st1:time><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center">FPH 102<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">In 1973, the
sterilization of two
young African American girls in <st1:place><st1:City>Montgomery</st1:City>,
<st1:State>Alabama</st1:State></st1:place>,
prompted national outrage and revelations of a pattern of sterilization
abuse
targeting poor women, especially poor women of color.<span style=""> </span>Examining
the federal court case (<i>Relf v.
Weinberger</i>) that grew out of the <st1:State><st1:place>Alabama</st1:place></st1:State>
childrens' sterilization reveals how an intensely personal event
(sterilization) illustrates political dynamics at the local, state,
national,
and even international levels.<span style=""> </span>It
demonstrates how the Nixon administration sought to use population
policy to
neutralize cross-cutting political tensions, simultaneously mollifying
liberal
and conservative activists.<span style=""> </span>It further
reveals the persistence of eugenic ideas, as the focus of attempts to
improve
humanity shifted from "skimming the gene pool" to ensuring that only
socially "fit" mothers procreated.<span style="">
</span>It also underscores the imbricated nature of race, class, and
gender
tensions in understanding and adjudicating the case.<span style=""> </span>Ultimately,
in the name of protecting poor
women, the courts established a procedure that actually limited their
access to
sterilization--then and today the favored form of long term birth
control.<span style=""> </span>Women faced a paradoxical double bind
as
courts attempted to protect their reproductive autonomy by restricting
their
reproductive autonomy--an eerie echo of the Vietnam-era mantra that,
"to
save the village, we had to destroy the village."<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>Biography<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Greg Dorr took his
undergraduate
degree from <st1:City><st1:place>Dartmouth</st1:place></st1:City>
(1990) and
did his graduate training at the <st1:place><st1:PlaceType>University</st1:PlaceType>
of <st1:PlaceName>Virginia</st1:PlaceName></st1:place> (MA, 1994;
Ph.D.
2000).<span style=""> </span>He has taught at UVa., the <st1:place><st1:PlaceType>University</st1:PlaceType>
of <st1:PlaceName>Alabama</st1:PlaceName></st1:place>, MIT, and <st1:place><st1:PlaceName>Amherst</st1:PlaceName>
<st1:PlaceType>College</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>.<span style=""> </span>The
<st1:place><st1:PlaceType>University</st1:PlaceType> of <st1:PlaceName>Virginia
Press</st1:PlaceName></st1:place> published his
book, "Segregation's Science:<span style="">
</span>Eugenics and Society in <st1:State><st1:place>Virginia</st1:place></st1:State>"
this past December (get it while it's hot!).<span style="">
</span>He has published articles in the Journal of Southern History,
the
American Journal of Legal History, the Bulletin of the History of
Medicine, and
the Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, as well as a number
of
essays in anthologies.<span style=""> </span>His talk is drawn
from an essay which will appear in a forthcoming volume tentatively
entitled,
"100 Years of Eugenics:<span style=""> </span>From the
"Indiana Experiment" to the Human Genome Era," edited by Paul
Lombardo for Indiana University Press.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><b><i>Refreshments
will be served.<o:p></o:p></i></b></p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Dr. Jennifer A. Hamilton
Assistant Professor of Legal Studies
School of Social Science
Hampshire College
Franklin Patterson Hall 208
893 West Street
Amherst, MA 01002
(413) 559-5578 (o)
(413) 559-5620 (f)
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:jhamilton@hampshire.edu">jhamilton@hampshire.edu</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://hampedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Hamilton">https://hampedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Hamilton</a>
</pre>
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