reproductive rights

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Just before the 2024 U.S. Election, Proskauer’s Reproductive Rights Steering Committee hosted a panel discussion addressing the current state of reproductive rights two years post-Dobbs.

I was honored to lead this conversation with the panel, which included two lawyers from the Center for Reproductive Rights, an organization where I previously served as a senior litigation attorney. The Center for Reproductive Rights is a global human rights organization that uses the law to advance reproductive freedom as a fundamental human right. During the conversation, Bella Pori, state legislative counsel in the U.S. Policy & Advocacy division, and Alex Wilson, a staff attorney with the Center’s U.S. Judicial Strategy team, outlined the ways the Center’s attorneys and advocates have challenged abortion bans and unnecessary maternal health restrictions, supported expansive policies protecting access to reproductive healthcare, and pushed for access to assisted reproduction. These actions describe some of the many ways the Center seeks to further its mission of ensuring that reproductive rights are protected in law as fundamental human rights for the dignity, equality, health and well-being of every person.

Last week, hundreds of lawyers and staff gathered across Proskauer for the 15th Annual Golden Gavel Awards ceremony to honor those who have made significant contributions to the Firm’s pro bono, corporate social responsibility and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion efforts this past year.  The evening began with a special guest.  Preet Bharara, the former United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, shared insights from his time in office, impressed the importance of public service, and addressed several issues he raised in his best-selling book Doing Justice: A Prosecutor’s Thoughts on Crime, Punishment, and The Rule of Law.  Also of note were remarks from Labor & Employment associate Godfre Blackman who is currently serving as the Firm’s NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) Fellow. As part of the Firm’s Collaborate for Change initiative, Proskauer created this fellowship for one of our associates to work directly with the LDF on strategic matters focusing on eliminating disparities and achieving racial justice and equality.

Today, an increasing number of medical practitioners are recognizing the importance of providing appropriate, non-discriminatory, and patient-centered health care to people born with intersex traits.  “Intersex” is an umbrella term used to describe a wide range of inborn variations in sex characteristics that do not seem to fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies. Considered a sex and gender minority by the National Institutes of Health, between 0.05 percent and 1.7 percent of the population is born with intersex traits.

Care of intersex individuals, particularly children, demands special attention to avoid biases based on outdated understandings of sex and gender. To assist hospitals in offering intersex-affirming health care, pro bono attorneys at Proskauer teamed up with nonprofit legal organizations interACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth and Lambda Legal to create an educational policy guide designed to better educate hospitals about the unique needs of intersex patients and address the bias and insensitivity intersex patients and their families all too often face in a health care setting.