Valuing Reproductive Loss with Jill Wieber Lens

Taboo Trades

My guest today is Jill Lens, who serves as the Dorothy M. Willie Professor in Excellence at the University of Iowa school of law. Professor Lens is a leading legal expert in reproductive justice and rights, with a particular focus on the legal treatment of stillbirth and pregnancy more generally. Her research is inspired by her son Caleb’s stillbirth in 2017, when she was 37 weeks pregnant.

She joins us today to discuss her recent paper, “Valuing Reproductive Loss," published in 2023 by the Georgetown Law Journal and coauthored with Dov Fox. That paper explores the tension between abortion rights and compensating the victims of reproductive loss and argues for a post-Dobbs reasessment of the law. I’m joined by UVA Law 3L, Alyssa Lawrence, who co-hosts this episode.

Further Reading:

Lens bio: https://law.uiowa.edu/people/jill-wieber-lens

"Original Public Meaning and Pregnancy's Ambiguities," with Evan D. Bernick, 122 Michigan Law Review 1443 (2024), Journal | HeinOnline | UI Off-Campus Access (HeinOnline) | Lexis | Westlaw

"Valuing Reproductive Loss," with Dov Fox, 112 Georgetown Law Journal 61 (2023), Journal | HeinOnline | UI Off-Campus Access (HeinOnline) | Lexis | Westlaw

"Abortion, Pregnancy Loss, & Subjective Fetal Personhood," with Greer Donley, 75 Vanderbilt Law Review 1649 (2022), Journal | HeinOnline | UI Off-Campus Access (HeinOnline) | Lexis | Westlaw

"Counting Stillbirths," 56 UC Davis Law Review 525 (2022), Journal

Krawiec bio: https://www.law.virginia.edu/faculty/profile/kdk4q/1181653