Future Choices: Assisted Reproductive Technologies and the Law

December 17, 2007, 9:00am – 10:30am

About This Event

In our modern world, sex is no longer the exclusive method for humans to reproduce. A new group of medical options, known as "assisted reproductive technologies," are challenging our understanding of parenthood and biological relationships. For now, the fertility industry remains largely unregulated in the United States. Where regulation of these technologies has occurred, however, it has had real-life consequences for thousands of people and ripple effects on multiple areas of the law, from adoption to abortion, from health insurance to inheritance. Assisted reproductive technologies bring to the fore important questions about who we are as individuals and families and whom society deems entitled to reproduce and parent. And these questions are not going to go away any time soon.

Please join us for an interactive conversation about these questions with a distinguished panel. Jessica Arons will present her new report, Future Choices: Assisted Reproductive Technologies and the Law, which covers three areas in which legislators and courts have already spoken to some degree-health insurance coverage, embryo disposition, and parentage determinations. Jackie Payne and Miriam Yeung will then offer comments, and, along with Jessica, examine the policy implications of these legal decisions and discuss with the audience the opportunities and challenges in moving forward.

Featured Panelists:
Jessica Arons, Director of the Women's Health & Rights Program, Center for American Progress
Jackie Payne, Director of Government Relations, Planned Parenthood Federation of America
Miriam Yeung, Director of Public Policy & Government Relations, The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, and incoming Executive Director, National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum

Moderated by:
Melody Barnes, Executive Vice President for Policy, Center for American Progress

 

Location

Center for American Progress
1333 H St. NW, 10th Floor
Washington, DC 20005

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Biographies

Jessica Arons is the Director of the Women's Health and Rights Program at the Center for American Progress. She also is a member of the Center's Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative. Most recently, Jessica served as a staff attorney fellow with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project. Prior to working at the ACLU, she practiced labor and employment law at James & Hoffman, P.C. Following law school, she clerked for the Honorable Elizabeth B. Lacy on the Supreme Court of Virginia. She also worked at the White House and on the 1996 Pennsylvania Democratic Coordinated Campaign prior to law school. Jessica is an honors graduate of Brown University and William and Mary School of Law. At William and Mary, Jessica was an Associate Editor of the William & Mary Law Review, Managing Editor of the William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law, and a Board Member of the William & Mary Public Service Fund. She has been seen on MSNBC, Fox News, and ABC News and heard on Clear Channel radio. Her publications include More Than a Choice: A Progressive Vision for Reproductive Health & Rights.

Melody Barnes is the Executive Vice President for Policy at the Center for American Progress, where she coordinates and helps to integrate all of the Center's policy work from the policy departments, fellows, and the Center's network of outside policy experts.

From December 1995 until March 2003, Barnes served as chief counsel to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) on the Senate Judiciary Committee. As Kennedy's chief counsel, she shaped civil rights, women's health and reproductive rights, commercial law, and religious liberties laws, as well as executive branch and judicial appointments. Barnes' experience also includes an appointment as Director of Legislative Affairs for the U. S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and serving as assistant counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights. During her tenure with the Subcommittee, she worked closely with members of Congress and their staffs to pass the Voting Rights Improvement Act of 1992, which was signed into law.

Barnes began her career as an attorney with Shearman & Sterling in New York City and is a member of both the New York State Bar Association and the District of Columbia Bar Association. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of The Constitution Project, EMILY's List, and The Maya Angelou Public Charter School. She received her law degree from the University of Michigan and her bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she graduated with honors in history.

Jacqueline Payne is the Director of Government Relations for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the nation's leading advocate for and provider of reproductive healthcare. Jackie is responsible for devising PPFA's public policy agenda and creating layered, coordinated strategies that leverage the power of Planned Parenthood's nearly 4 million activists and supporters nationwide to advance their international, federal, and state policy goals. She is also charged with spearheading the development of a health finance program to protect and support the business interests of this 900 million dollar, non profit public health organization through public policy.

Prior to joining PPFA, Jackie was the Policy Attorney for NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund where she focused on matters of economic and gender justice, including reauthorization of the Violence Against Women and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) acts. As an Adjunct Professor, Jackie taught Gender Equality and the Law at Georgetown University for five years.

Prior to moving to D.C. she worked as a legal services attorney on the west side of Chicago and for a short time on gender equality issues in South Africa. Jackie received a bachelor's degree in business from the University of Illinois and a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School.

Miriam Yeung is currently the Director of Public Policy & Government Relations for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, the largest multi-service community center for the LGBT community on the east coast. She is responsible for the advocacy, community education, and government relations work of the Center which includes Promote the Vote, one of the countries oldest and largest LGBT voter education and mobilization projects, and Causes in Common, a national cross-movement project which builds working alliances between the reproductive justice and LGBT liberation movements. Starting February 1st, Miriam will be the executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum. Miriam received her Masters in Public Administration at Baruch College, and her BA at NYU.