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for a past academic year. Please see the current academic year for up to date information.
| Unit name |
Reproduction Law, Ethics, and Policy |
| Unit code |
LAWD30068 |
| Credit points |
20 |
| Level of study |
H/6
|
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 4 (weeks 1-24)
|
| Unit director |
Professor. Sheelagh McGuinness |
| Open unit status |
Open |
| Pre-requisites |
None.
|
| Co-requisites |
None.
|
| School/department |
University of Bristol Law School |
| Faculty |
Faculty of Social Sciences and Law |
Description including Unit Aims
This unit aims to give students the opportunity to gain knowledge and critical understanding of the relationship between law and reproduction in the United Kingdom and internationally. The unit will be grounded in a socio-legal approach; this allows students to think critically and analytically about the historical, cultural, and ethical underpinnings of regulation of reproduction. At the start of the unit the students are introduced to sexual and reproductive health policy and specifically arguments based in reproductive justice. From there we move on to consider specific issues in how we regulate sexual and reproductive health. Although the focus will be on reproduction the unit will give students the opportunity to think critically about the interplay between public and private choices and specifically the place of law in regulating intimate activities. Students will spend much of their time critically assessing the concepts of privacy, liberty, and justice as applied in the sphere of reproduction.
Topics may include:
- Introduction to Reproductive Justice
- Critical Race Feminism
- Feminist Disability Theory
- Reproduction and Embodiment
- Deficiencies in Reproductive Choice Frameworks
- Sex, Bodies, Categorisation
- Gendered Harms
- Advocacy & the Reproductive Justice Framework
- Reproductive Donation
- Preventing Pregnancy
- Sex, Intimacy, Contraception, & Disability
- Sterilisation & Disability
- The Pregnant Body
- Options in Childbirth
- Who should be a parent?
- Mental Health and Reproduction
- Reproductive Loss
Intended Learning Outcomes
Students who have successfully passed this unit will be able to
- critically assess theoretical frameworks that inform our understanding of the relationship between law and reproduction
- engage in reasoned debates (both written and oral) and be able to defend their position when challenged with alternative or opposing arguments
- apply different theoretical frameworks to novel issues
- summarise and criticise the way in which society regulates reproductive choices and experiences.
Teaching Information
10 lectures and 10 two-hour seminars
Assessment Information
Formative assessment:
1 x 1000 word essay
Students are also required to give a poster presentation
Summative assessment:
2 x 2000 word essay (each contributing 50% of the mark)
The assessments will assess all of the intended learning outcomes for this unit. Oral communication will be assessed formatively in the presentation.
Reading and References
- Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the meaning of Liberty (Vintage Books, 1997)
- Bridgman & Millns, eds, Law and Body Politics: Regulating the Female Body (1995)
- Cook et al (eds) Abortion law in transnational perspective: cases and controversies (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014)
- Fineman The Neutered Mother, The Sexual Family and Other Twentieth Century Tragedies (Routledge; 1995)
- Garland-Thomson, Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature (Columbia University Press, 1997)
- Murray & Luker, Cases on Reproductive Rights and Justice (Foundation Press, 2015)
- Silliman et al, Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice (South End Press, 2004)
- Smart Feminism and the Power of Law (Routledge, 1989)
- Smith & Deazley (eds) The Legal, Medical and Cultural Regulation of the Body (Ashgate, Surrey; 2008)
