2024-2025 Impact Report

The Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice (CRRJ) at UC Berkeley Law has released its 2024-2025 Impact Report, “Connecting Movements: Building Power for Change.” The report highlights the Center’s efforts to bridge academia and advocacy, serving as a hub for thought leadership and a political home for reproductive rights, health, and justice.

Intersectional Coursework and Programming

CRRJ’s programming, guided by a Black queer feminist lens, focuses on an intersectional agenda that challenges harmful policies and affirms a vision of reproductive justice for all people, regardless of race, gender, or income. The Center’s recent efforts have prioritized re-establishing an intellectual and political hub for students and scholars interested in bodily autonomy.

Key highlights from the report include:

• Intersectional Coursework: The course “Selected Topics in Reproductive Justice” hosted a speaker series on topics like pregnancy criminalization, family policing, and birth justice. Students learned from practitioners who have confronted these issues in their work and lives.

• Maternal Health: Over 60 students attended a panel discussion on “Visioning Birthing Justice for Black Birthing People,” which focused on structural interventions to address racist maternal health disparities.

• Criminalization: CRRJ co-convened a discussion with District Attorneys on the role of prosecutors in protecting reproductive rights. A separate talk by Dr. Grace Howard highlighted that pregnancy criminalization is not a new phenomenon, with pregnant people facing arrest and prosecution for decades before Roe v. Wade was overturned.

Building Movement Power and Solidarity

The Center has convened hundreds of advocates and students, supported movement partners, and engaged in research and scholarship aligned with reproductive justice values. This includes

• Family Policing Symposium: CRRJ, along with Movement for Family Power and If/When/How: Lawyers for Reproductive Justice, co-convened over 200 attendees for a symposium to explore the links between attacks on reproductive rights and forced family separation. The event featured discussions with impacted parents, birth workers, and family defenders.

• Interdisciplinary Convenings: In a collaborative workshop, law, medical, and social work students explored interdisciplinary approaches to address family policing. The Center also convened leaders of domestic violence service agencies to discuss pregnancy-related abuse and coercion in the post-Dobbs climate.

Advocacy, Scholarship, and Research

CRRJ is a member of several advocacy coalitions, including the California Coalition for Reproductive Freedom and the California Abortion Alliance. The Center’s research and scholarship efforts include:

• Amicus Briefs: CRRJ collaborated with partners to file an amicus brief in a New York court case, challenging a finding of neglect against a prospective father for his partner’s drug use during pregnancy.

• Mapping Project: The Mapping Criminalization of Bodily Autonomy Project aims to foster cross-movement collaboration by highlighting intersecting forms of criminalization that affect marginalized communities. The project will produce comparative law and policy analyses on abortion bans, sex work, HIV exposure, and gender-affirming care.

• Publications: CRRJ staff and students have contributed to several publications, including Fighting for Reproductive Justice While Incarcerated and a forthcoming piece in the Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law & Justice.