Kairos and Safe Havens: The Timing and Calamity of Unwanted Birth

It is impossible to know the number of infants killed or illegally abandoned at birth. No official reporting requirements exist, but conservative estimates claim that in the United States, 150-300 infants are killed within twenty-four hours of life and that over 100 infants are illegally abandoned. Beginning in 1999, in an effort to stem the problem of neonaticide and illegal abandonment, states began enacting laws to legalize abandonment. By 2008, all fifty states had enacted safe haven laws, which allow parents to anonymously abandon newborns by delivering them to designated providers, such as hospitals. This article provides a practical and theoretical framework to discuss safe haven laws, which have come under attack by various adoption groups and legal scholars who claim the laws are ineffective. This article demonstrates that those unjustified attacks fail to recognize that increased usage of safe haven laws in states with strong public awareness programs has effectively reduced the number of infant deaths in those states. Additionally, this article contrasts American safe haven laws with models in other countries, including anonymous birth in France and baby flaps in Germany. Finally, this article considers the rhetoric of legalized abandonment and suggests that the rhetoric of kairos, or right-timing, offers a pragmatic and feminist lens through which to view safe havens as one effective option for women facing the crisis of unwanted pregnancy

Introduction: The Power of Stories: Gloucester Tales

This special symposium issue includes a selection of the almost sixty papers delivered at the conference. As both the number of papers and breadth of topics demonstrate, law and literature is not dead.\u27 Rather, it is alive, kicking, and inspiring scholarly investigation. A general overview of this symposium issue shows all three strands of the law and literature movement. One strand, law in literature, examines legal issues and representations of lawyers that appear in literary works.\u27 Another strand, law as literature, uses the tools of literary theory to analyze judicial decisions and legislative enactments. The third strand, the narrative project, focuses on narrative, and on the use and power of storytelling in law. While many of the papers might be categorized as taking a law in literature approach, others take a narrative approach, and yet others take a law as literature approach

The Hand That Rocks the Cradle: How Children\u27s Literature Reflects Motherhood, Identity, and International Adoption

Children\u27s books are a source of law for children because [children] are constantly trying to make sense of what is going on around them, and although literature itself is only a constituent of life experience, as a constituent it is potentially of the greatest importance. As adults and lawyers, we can also read children\u27s books as a source of law because they reflect patriarchal ideologies about the family and stigma surrounding adoption. Like other myths, children\u27s books tell stories about origins and constitute not only subjects but are also the foundation of law by reflecting legal norms and projecting legal changes. Children\u27s stories dramatize the evolution of family and adoption through four narratives: the kinship narrative, the as-if narrative, the failure narrative, and the bad mother narrative. The kinship narrative, discussed in Part II, defines family to include those bound by kinship or blood. The kinship narrative labels adoption as second best and views adoption through three narratives discussed in Part III: the as-if narrative, which sees adoption as trying to replicate kinship; the failure narrative, which views adoption as the result of a failure to have birth children; and the bad mother narrative, which labels the mother who gives up her child for adoption as a bad mother.My discussion of these narratives focuses on books for children under the age of eight. According to research concerning developmental stages, children under age five accept adoption like any other fact about themselves. One survey response illustrates this early stage: [My two year old] is still too young to conceptually understand the adoption concept. She does know that she was born in China and will tell people this. Researchers have found that children around ages six to nine start to distinguish birth from adoption and begin to question the permanence of adoption. Later, children focus on the legality of adoption and accept it as permanent. So, this project focuses on books for younger children because the simple and uncomplicated narratives offer a seemingly transparent and accessible source of law. It should be noted, however, that illustrations are a primary part of children\u27s books because pictures are more important than words for young children. In addition, many of these books have illustrations of animals rather than people because children under age seven identify with animals and cannot yet separate fantasy and reality

Incest in a Thousdand Acres: Cheap Trick or Feminist Re-vision

This article ultimately argues that the plot changes are not a cheap trick intended to manipulate the reader\u27s emotions, but a feminist re-vision, which succeeds or not depending on the reader\u27s critical feminist perspective. Thus, Part Two delineates several feminist stances, such as liberal feminism, radical feminism, social feminism, and postmodern feminism, and summarizes the plot changes Smiley has imposed on King Lear. Part Three considers one major plot change - the longing for the mother - in terms of patriarchy\u27s suppression of a maternal genealogy and feminine language. This part argues that the novel successfully demonstrates the difficulty in overthrowing patriarchal suppression in order to create the woman-centered experience that feminists such as Luce Irigaray and Adrienne Rich describe. Part Four considers another major plot change - the incest by the father - in terms of patriarchy\u27s suppression of feminine reality. Smiley\u27s re-vision succeeds by providing a voice for silenced feminine perspectives, and although some readers might consider the incest theme a cheap trick because it manipulates readers\u27 emotions, this part provides several responses to that accusation. On one hand, Smiley\u27s re-vision is not unlike Shakespeare\u27s own re-vision of the folklore motif and historical Leir story. Smiley\u27s re-vision is driven by a feminist purpose to demonstrate women\u27s vulnerability to patriarchal violence. This part argues that from the viewpoint of radical feminism, Smiley\u27s re-vision successfully contrasts dominant reality with suppressed feminine reality, and in the end of the novel, provides an alternative discourse that allows the primary female characters to. subvert the patriarchal view. But on the other hand, from the viewpoint of postmodern feminism, Smiley\u27s re-vision does not successfully reclaim feminine sexuality, or jouissance. Rather, the shame of incest cannot be overcome

Helene Cixous\u27s The Perjured City: Nonprosecution Alternatives to Collective Violence

In instances of collective violence — apartheid in South Africa, mass killings in Rwanda, and other crimes against humanity such as slavery — what response provides justice? How can justice be achieved under such a system? Legal justice through prosecution would be unjust. This opens the possibility of nonprosecution alternatives involving forgiveness. Hélène Cixous’s play about forgiveness as an alternative to criminal prosecution, The Perjured City: Or, the Awakening of the Furies, was written in response to an actual case of failed justice in France, known as the Bad Blood Scandal. The play provides a model of forgiveness and a forum for public catharsis. Her play addresses the legal system’s failure to hold accountable several French physicians who exposed hemophiliacs to Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). The background of the Bad Blood Scandal is discussed in Part One of this Article. Cixous viewed the scandal as a genocide and responded by writing The Perjured City, a play that exposes the unjustness of the legal system. Part Two analyzes this play, in which the mother of dead hemophiliac children wants to avenge their deaths. The responsible doctors are hounded by the Greek Furies, who have been silently observing the legal system’s injustice since they went underground to be benevolent goddesses after the trial of Orestes in Aeschylus’ play The Eumenides. Cixous’s play calls for the Furies’ return, but her play does not depict simple revenge. Rather, her play depicts a ceremony of confession and forgiveness. Parts Three and Four of this Article summarize the goals and the theoretical debate surrounding nonprosecution alternatives such as the ceremony found in The Perjured City. Typically, nonprosecution alternatives attempt to provide therapeutic goals or restorative justice. Many theoretical questions arise when forgiveness is also sought as part of restorative justice. Should forgiveness be unconditional? Should forgiveness be sought in the public forum? Does forgiveness lead to forgiving? After considering these questions, Part Five of this Article considers an example of nonprosecution alternatives in the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which was a likely model for Cixous, who had written a book on Nelson Mandela. This Article concludes by arguing that while there is no simple answer to the question of what is just justice, society must remain open to nonprosecution alternatives and restorative justice, especially in the context of extraordinary crimes

[N]ot a Story to Pass On: Constructing Mothers Who Kill

Toni Morrison has said in her Nobel acceptance speech, “We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.” How we “do language” in judicial decisions about infanticide can perhaps be compared to and informed by fiction such as Toni Morrison’s Beloved.Beloved provides a fictional account of the life of a historical woman, a slave who escaped to freedom and then attempted to kill all four of her children, successfully killing one when her master came to claim her under the Fugitive Slave Act. In addition to telling a story about infanticide, which not only the typical reader but also characters in the novel find impossible to understand, Beloved is a story about the spectrum of love from hate to smothering affection. The novel suggests that understanding infanticide depends upon a notion of outlaw justice that is grounded in a mother’s private ethics. The mother’s action becomes comprehensible, if at all, only through “love for the other,” through Morrison’s use of legal narrative which helps readers to begin to understand the other. We view the infanticidal mother as “other” as a result of our binary, hierarchized thinking. “Love for the other” can take place when we refuse to label the infanticidal mother as “other,” when we privilege the “other,” and begin to hear pieces of her story from her view, when we allow her to be a speaking subject. Before examining the novel, Part I of this article compares the plot of Beloved with Modern Medea, the nonfiction account of the slave mother who committed infanticide and who served as the inspiration for Morrison’s main character. Part II explores ways in which law constructs definitions of motherhood, especially of mothers who kill their children — by pecularizing women, by silencing women, and by labeling mothers who kill their children as either “bad or mad.” Part III then examines the historical and fictional reaction to infanticide in both Beloved and Modern Medea in order to show how discourse constructs motherhood and how difficult it is to respond to infanticide with love for the other. Both the historical and fictional communities ostracized the slave mother as “other” and refused to understand the circumstances or motivation for the murder. Part III weaves together the narrative threads Morrison uses to help the reader overcome the community’s bias and to understand the mother’s murder. Although the reader may not condone the mother’s action, the reader of Beloved may be able to see her not as “other,” but with “other love” as a speaking subject, and thus perceive the circumstances that led to the infanticide.Part IV of this article is a selected sampling of Texas judicial decisions and news reports of cases of infanticide by Texas mothers from 1899 to the present, and Part V analyzes trial and media responses to the infanticides by Andrea Yates, a Houston mother who drowned her five children. Both Parts IV and V examine how juridico-legal discourse constructs mothers who kill their children. Finally, this article concludes by arguing that legal narratives of infanticide could benefit by striving to fully hear and record the accused mother’s tale not as “other,” but with “other love,” to understand the complexity of a mother’s experience

Introduction: The Power of Stories: Gloucester Tales

For a second year, scholars made a pilgrimage to Gloucester for a three-day academic conference sponsored by Texas Wesleyan Law School, the University of Gloucestershire, and the Central Gloucester Initiative. This year\u27s conference theme, The Power of Stories: Intersections of Law, Culture and Literature, was inspired by the medieval folktale about Dick Whittington and his cat. While the City of Gloucester planned various events to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the folktale, such as a re-enactment of Dick Whittington\u27s pilgrimage from Gloucester to London, conference organizers in both the United States and England planned a thought-provoking conference. They did not plan for bombs in London two days before the start of the conference. Nevertheless, scholars remained undeterred in making their pilgrimage from different parts of the European Union, Australia, and the United States. After a visit to Berkeley Castle and a medieval fair complete with jousting, participants gathered at Gloucester Cathedral for choral evensong, a guided tour of the Norman and Gothic styled cathedral (including the tomb of King Edward II-a hooly blisful martir ), and dinner outside the cloisters where several Harry Potter movies have been filmed. Over the next two days, scholars presented inspiring panels and continued their conversations over a dinner at the Gloucester City Museum and a banquet at the medieval Blackfriars priory hosted by the Texas Wesleyan Law Review

Trauma-Informed Advocacy: Learning to Empathize with Unspeakable Horrors

During the Senate Judiciary Committee Hearings on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh as associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, Christine Blasey Ford testified regarding an alleged sexual assault by Kavanaugh that had occurred thirty-five years earlier. Although some viewed Blasey Ford’s testimony as a doomed repeat of Anita Hill’s testimony during the hearings on the nomination of Clarence Thomas, one significant difference was that the Kavanaugh hearings demonstrated an increased public awareness of the impacts of trauma. And just as senators hired a prosecutor trained in trauma-informed lawyering to question Blasey Ford, today’s lawyers must understand how trauma impacts the victims they represent. In fact, studies indicate that sexual abuse of girls is correlated with their recidivism in the juvenile justice system, and the ABA has called for trauma-informed advocacy for children and youth. The importance of trauma-informed advocacy for all victims cannot be overstated. In learning to empathize with the unspeakable horrors of trauma, this Article argues for the incorporation of narrative and poetry as effective and efficient teaching tools for trauma-informed advocacy

Inside the Master\u27s Gates: Resources and Tools to Dismantle Racism and Sexism in Higher Education

The spring of 2020 saw waves of protest as police killed people of color. After George Floyd’s death, protests erupted in over 140 cities. The systemic racism exhibited by these killings has been uncontrollable, hopeless, and endless. Our country is facing a national crisis. In response to the police killings, businesses, schools, and communities held diversity workshops across the nation, and businesses and organizations posted antiracism statements. Legislators and City Councils introduced bills and orders to defund police and to limit qualified immunity. As schools prepared for the fall semester, teachers considered ways to incorporate antiracism materials into the curriculum. Drawing on the storytelling movement of Critical Race Theory, this Article discusses tools law professors can use to explore these issues in a safer and more egalitarian classroom setting, including counter-stories, such as those compiled in Claire Millikin’s “Substance of Fire: Gender and Race in the College Classroom.” Using an intersectional approach, this Article argues that important questions we should be asking our students and each other are (1) How does a particular area of law have racist and sexist effects and what can law do to remedy those effects? and (2) How do racism and sexism within the institution affect students and professors

Pink Ghetto

This creative piece offers a postmodern feminist critique of law faculty hierarchies, including the status of legal research and writing faculty positions. It incorporates theories of Hélène Cixous to challenge discriminatory practices in law schools