Reproductive Justice

We have been involved in many consequential recent matters involving reproductive choice, access to family planning, and other restrictions on personal autonomy around child birth and child rearing.

• Paul, Weiss has long been at the forefront of protecting abortion access. Among other high-profile representations:
• In a series of district and circuit court cases that spanned over a decade, we represented the last remaining abortion clinic in Mississippi and Missouri respectively, successfully challenging those state’s multiple attempts to enact laws that would ban abortions prior to viability.
• As co-counsel with the Center for Reproductive Rights, we represented the Jackson Women’s Health Organization before the Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The Supreme Court in that case upheld Mississippi’s pre-viability abortion ban, reversing the Fifth Circuit and overturning Roe, Casey, and nearly fifty years of precedent in the first ever decision eliminating a previously recognized individual Constitutional right.
• In the aftermath of Dobbs, we pivoted our legal strategies for protecting access to abortion services
• We are leading the New York Attorney General’s Reproductive Health Taskforce, a coalition of reproductive rights groups, law firms, and bar associations convened by the Attorney General to ensure that health care providers, abortion funds, and individuals understand and can avail themselves of their rights relating to reproductive choice, and we are engaging in similar efforts through the San Francisco Bar Association’s Justice League.
• We are counseling numerous health care providers and abortion funds, providing advice on a host of critical issues stemming from the Dobbs decision and state laws, so that they may continue to provide broad access to abortion services.
• We are challenging abortion bans under state law.
• Paul, Weiss has tirelessly protected the right to all aspects of family planning and reproductive bodily autonomy.
• In September 2021, we helped secure an important victory for family defense advocates in Elisa W. v. City of New York. Our clients, who collectively represent a majority of parents with children in the NYC foster care system, argued in an amicus submission that plaintiffs were improperly attempting to use a class action to supplant the express and considered policy choices of defendants New York State and New York City, which favor family reunification, with plaintiffs’ own preferred policy of early adoption. The Southern District denied class certification in a decision that repeatedly cited our amicus brief and relied heavily on our expert’s declaration.
• We assist international organizations focused on family planning, access to contraception and reproductive health products and services in the developing world with corporate structuring and complying with local regulations and reporting obligations.
• We drafted legislation, in coordination with the Correctional Association of New York, that led to a New York State law that significantly curtailed the use of shackles on pregnant women incarcerated in New York State prison and local jails.
• We prevailed in multiple litigations challenging the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision’s unlawful denial of incarcerated mothers’ right to live with their newborn children in the Bedford Hills Correction Facility prison nursery.