Prof. Michele Goodwin on Using Law to Counter Disparities in Women’s Health

Lunch talk

Join a conversation: with Professor Michele Goodwin, Lilianne Ploumen and Bahareh Goodarzi.

Date: 22 November 2023
Time: 12:00 -13:00
Location: Amsterdam Law Hub

The Law Centre for Health and Life and Bureau Clara Wichmann are inviting you for a lunch talk with Professor Michele Goodwin, Linda D. & Timothy J. O’Neill Professor of Constitutional Law and Global Health Policy and Co-Faculty Director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. Lilianne Ploumen is a senior advisor to Bureau Clara Wichmann, the former Minister of Foreign Trade and Development, and the former leader of the Labour Party in the Dutch Parliament. Dr. Bahareh Goodarzi is a midwife and post-doctoral research fellow focusing on reproductive justice from a critical midwifery point of view.

On the 22nd of November the Dutch general elections will be held. While growing disparities in healthcare are increasingly recognized, so is resistance against constructive solutions. In the field of reproductive health and birth care, paternalism remains a mainstay, and in the Netherlands abortion care is still regulated through criminal law.

As the election results roll in, we will talk about the role of law in creating or overcoming healthcare disparities. Specifically, disparities in access to birth and reproductive care. What can we learn from the US experience? Where do we stand? What are political parties in the Netherlands proposing and what perspectives are there for the future in both the US and the rest of the world?

Prof. Dr. Michele Goodwin

Dr. Michele Goodwin is a distinguished professor at Georgetown Law School. She holds the O'Neill Chair in Constitutional Law and Global Health Policy and serves as the Faculty Co-Director of the O'Neill Institute For National and Global Health Policy. She is an acclaimed author, commentator, and advocate. Her writings and commentary appear in the New York Times, The Atlantic, The Nation, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, among others. She is a frequent contributor to Ms. Magazine and the host of their On The Issues podcast. Her extensive investigations on the conditions of women and girls has included field research in Europe, South and Central America, Asia, Australia, the Americas, and Africa. Dr. Goodwin is the author of six books, including the award-winning Policing The Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood and more than 100 articles and commentaries. In 2023, she won the California Women's Law Center Pursuit of Justice Award and in 2022 was bestowed the Margaret Brent Award by the American Bar Association.

Dr. Bahareh Goodarzi

Dr. Bahareh Goodarzi is a midwife, educator at the Midwifery Academy Amsterdam Groningen, and a postdoctoral researcher at the Amsterdam University Medical Center’s Department of Midwifery Science. Dr. Goodarzi studies the causes of pregnancy and birth outcome inequalities in The Netherlands, a country with relatively low morbidity and mortality rates for infants and mothers. Dr. Goodarzi’s work has demonstrated that even in wealthy nations with robust social safety nets, immigration status and race can significantly influence reproductive outcomes. She is working to turn this work on discrimination in maternal and newborn care into a book. Additionally, Dr. Goodarzi co-founded the Critical Midwifery Studies Collective, which calls for a midwifery-led, critical approach to analyzing injustice in sexual reproductive maternal and newborn care.

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Amsterdam Law Hub

Nieuwe Achtergracht 164
1018WV Amsterdam

Prof. Michele Goodwin on Using Law to Counter Disparities in Women’s Health

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