John W. Fisher II Lecture in Law and Medicine
Abortion and the Visual Construction of Loss
presented by
Carol Sanger
Barbara Aronstein Black Professor of Law
Columbia Law School
Columbia University, New York, NY.
10 a.m., Friday, October 30, 2009,
WVU Law Center, Marlyn E. Lugar Courtroom, Morgantown, WV.
Reception immediately following the lecture
Professor Carol Sanger, the Barbara Aronstein Black Professor of Law at the Columbia Law school, will speak at the John W. Fisher II Lecture in Law and Medicine on the policy that several states now require that before a woman can consent to an abortion, she must first undergo an ultrasound examination and be offered the image of her fetus. The lecture, “Abortion and the Visual Construction of Loss,” will be held 10 a.m., Friday, October 30, 2009, in the Marlyn E. Lugar Courtroom, at the WVU Law Center in Morgantown, WV. A reception will follow the lecture.
According to Professor Sanger “Mandatory ultrasound intrudes upon that protected area of decision making in several respects. First, simply by virtue of having an ultrasound, a pregnant woman is promoted into the category of mother and it is against this conscripted status that she must proceed. Second, unlike other compulsory forms of abortion disclosure, the statutes require the woman to use her body to produce the very information intended to dissuade her from pursuing an abortion. The resulting fetal image is intended as a self-evident statement about the meaning of human life.”
Sanger adds, “But characterizing the fetus as a child, as most ultrasound statutes do, is a political description, not a scientific one. It confuses medically informed consent with what I identify as morally informed consent, that realm of personal considerations that are a woman’s alone to determine. Imbued with indelible social meaning, the mandatory ultrasound requirement replaces consent with coercion – not about the ultimate decision, but about how a woman chooses to get there.”
Sanger’s lecture will explore a set of questions within the framework of mandatory ultrasound statutes:
- Do these laws fit within the traditional framework of informed consent?
- What is a pregnant woman supposed to feel and to think when she looks at an ultrasound image?
- Is there any evidence of what pregnant women do feel and think with regard to the image of an embryo or fetus under these circumstances?
- Is there a difference between medically informed consent and morally informed consent?
Professor Sanger, received a B.A., from Wellesley, and her J.D., from the University of Michigan. She worked in a Commercial law practice in San Francisco and has previously taught at the University of Oregon and at Santa Clara University Law School. She has been a Visiting scholar for the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at Stanford Law School; and a Visiting Professor at Stanford Law School and Columbia Law School. Professor Sanger joined the faculty at the Columbia University School of Law in 1996.
She is a member of the executive board of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender. She was awarded the Columbia University Presidential Teaching Prize in 2001; and named a Fellow in the Program on Law and Public Affairs at Princeton for 2003-04. Sanger was awarded the Willis Reese Teaching Prize by graduating class of 2007. Sanger was also named a Plumer Fellow at St. Anne’s College at Oxford in the Fall of 2008.
Her teaching areas include Contracts, Family Law, and courses focusing on reproduction, the legal profession, and law and gender. Recent scholarship focuses on the regulation of maternal conduct, the regulation of abortion, surrogacy, and always, law’s relation to culture. Professor Sanger was Editor, Cases and Materials on Contracts (7th ed., 2008) (with the late E.A. Farnsworth, and Professors Young, Cohen, and Brooks).
John W. Fisher II Lecture in Law and Medicine This lecture series is made possible through the generosity of Thomas S. Clark, M.D., and Jean Clark, formerly of Morgantown, now residing in Bruceton, West Virginia. The Clark Family Lecture Series was established in 1998, with a half-million dollar pledge to fund lectures in 10 fields of study throughout WVU.
Thomas S. Clark graduated from the WVU Medical Technology program in 1967 and received his medical degree from WVU in 1975. He is medical director of Mylan Pharmaceuticals and the former CEO and owner of Clinical Pharmacologic Research, Inc. Jean Clark completed her B.A. at WVU in 1967 and earned a master’s degree in education in 1974. She is a member of the WVU Foundation, Inc., Board of Directors. The Clarks have two sons, Stuart, of Nashville, Tennessee, and Chad, who resides in Morgantown.
John W. Fisher II John W. Fisher II became the 15th WVU Dean of Law on April 2, 1998. Among the recognitions he received, in the form of congratulations, was the John W. Fisher II Lecture in Law and Medicine.
Fisher received his B.A. in History from WVU in 1964 and his J.D. from the WVU College of Law in 1967. He joined the College of Law faculty in 1971 and has been called, “the state’s foremost authority in the field of property law,” by the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. In 1977, he received an appointment as a part-time magistrate for the U.S. District Court, and full professor tenure at the College of Law. During the 1980s, he served a four-year term as WVU Chief of Staff and advisor to the Office of the President. Prior to his 1998 deanship, he fulfilled the leadership role of interim dean three times. He is married to Susan V. Fisher, and they have a daughter, Jennifer, a son, Jay, and two grandchildren, Austin and Emily. In 2007 he was named William J. Maier, Jr. Dean and Professor of of Law.
The West Virginia Law Review This lecture is part of a series presented in cooperation with the West Virginia Law Review focusing on healthcare. In the coming months the Law Review will sponsor additional lectures and panel discussions exploring topics related to health care reform and other health issues.
Founded in 1894, the West Virginia Law Review is the fourth oldest law review in the United States and publishes three issues each year. The West Virginia Law Review is a professional, student-governed legal journal that publishes articles of interest to legal scholars, students, legislators, and members of the practicing Bar. The publication, which includes notes, comments, and articles of scholarly and practical value to the legal community, is published by a student editorial board.