Abortion Privacy/Abortion Secrecy - What's the Difference and Why Does It Matter?

The Centre for Health Law, Science and Policy and the Public Law Research Cluster were delighted to host Professor Carol Sanger (Barbara Aronstein Black Professor of Law, Columbia Law School and Visiting Fellow, All Souls, Oxford) at Birmingham Law School on 29 April 2014. 

Professor Sanger’s visit to the school consisted in two research events which drew from chapters in her forthcoming book with Harvard University Press; About Abortion. The first part of the day consisted in an afternoon reading group where a chapter of her book entitled 'Fathers and Fetuses: What Would Men Do?' was discussed. A range of scholars, both from the University of Birmingham and other institutions across the UK, were invited to attend the reading group. It was a lively afternoon of discussion, debate, and theorizing the possibilities for regulating abortion. 

The reading group was followed by a public lecture where Professor Sanger spoke to a chapter of her book entitled ‘Abortion Privacy/Abortion Secrecy’. This was an interesting and provocative problematisation of the difference between abortion being a private issue and abortion being a secret.