Michele Goodwin

Memory, Medicine and Law: Reflecting on the 20th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina @ Washington, D.C., Sept. 11-13

PUBLISHED 9/3/2025 by | UPDATED 9/9/2025 at 10:53 A.M. PT

This fall marks 20 years since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, leaving more than 1,800 people dead and hundreds of thousands displaced. Katrina was not just a natural disaster—it was a political, legal and public health catastrophe that exposed deep inequities in the United States. Women, low-income communities and communities of color were hit hardest, and the failures of government response left lasting scars that continue to shape policy and memory today.

To reflect on these legacies, Georgetown University will host a three-day symposium, “Memory, Medicine and Law: Reflecting on the 20th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina,” from Sept. 11-13, 2025, at its Capitol Campus and adjoining Law Center, located at 125 E Street NW in Washington, D.C.

The symposium is free and open to the public, but registration is required.

The U.S. Built Wealth Off Enslaved Women and Girls: Michele Goodwin on the History of Reproductive Injustice

PUBLISHED 7/20/2025 by

Goodwin, an expert in constitutional law and health policy, uncovers the reproductive health rights stories embedded in American history—and what they tell us about the future of our fight for reproductive freedom.

Listen to the second episode Ms. podcast, Looking Back, Moving Forward—”Inside the Feminist Fight to Reclaim Our Reproductive Freedom (with Renee Bracey Sherman, Michele Goodwin, Angie Jean-Marie and Amy Merrill, Susan Frietsche, and Gov. Maura Healey)”—on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Dangers of Weaponizing Health and Science: The Ms. Q&A with Dr. Michele Goodwin

PUBLISHED 1/27/2025 by

Within the first few days of his second term, Donald Trump’s threat to the country’s health was evident. The Trump administration has already ordered federal health agencies to cease public communications, directed agencies to cancel meetings to review biomedical research, and pardoned 23 individuals who violently interfered with patients’ care at reproductive health clinics—all without a confirmed secretary for Health and Human Services (HHS). Trump has promised to let his HHS secretary nominee, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., “Go wild.” RFK Jr. faces his first of two confirmation hearings this week, on January 29, and a vote will follow sometime in the coming weeks.

Ms. spoke with Dr. Michele Goodwin, the co-faculty director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University and executive producer of Ms. Studios, to understand the devastating health consequences of a Trump-RFK Jr. team, where we can focus our energy in response, and how to hold on to hope over the next four years.

Supreme Court ’23-’24 Term in Review: ‘It’s About Power. It’s About Politics.’

PUBLISHED 7/2/2024 by , and

Monday, July 1, marked the end of a historic and ominous Supreme Court term—with bombshell rulings on presidential immunity, the right to abortion care in emergencies, gun control, the criminalization of homelessness, the availability of medication abortion and more.

A panel at the 14th annual Supreme Court Review at Georgetown Law School discussed the high Court’s monumental decisions from the last several months, which will have ripple effects for years and decades to come. 

2023’s Top 10 Most Memorable Moments From ‘On The Issues with Michele Goodwin’

PUBLISHED 12/20/2023 by
2020's 10 Most Memorable Moments from the Ms. Podcast, "On the Issues With Michele Goodwin"

2023 marked three years of On the Issues With Michele Goodwin, a fiercely feminist podcast about the most compelling issues of our time. This year, Goodwin brought us lawmakers, scholars and founders of movements and organizations that have defined how we think about fields like reproductive justice, care work and gun violence.

We selected some of the most powerful words heard on the podcast this year to propel us into 2024.

Welcome to the New Jane Crow

PUBLISHED 12/14/2023 by

The Supreme Court of Texas notched itself into a troubling tapestry of U.S. legal history when it overturned a district court ruling that allowed Kate Cox, a 31-year-old Texas woman, to end her nonviable pregnancy. The state is committed to forcing Cox to remain pregnant, against her will and medical recommendations.

Women in Texas are living in a new Jane Crow. 

The Urgency for Reproductive Freedom: From Slavery to the New Jane Crow

PUBLISHED 5/24/2022 by

When states coerce and force women, girls and people with the capacity for pregnancy to remain pregnant against their will, they create human chattel and incubators of them. Today, Texas, Mississippi and other states with ‘trigger’ bans make clear that the essences of chattel bondage and the draft have returned, but only for women, girls and pregnant-capable people.

Coercing Rape Survivors to Be Pregnant for the State—The Texas Way

PUBLISHED 10/1/2021 by and
Coercing Rape Survivors to Be Pregnant for the State—The Texas Way

Texas has one of the nation’s highest rape rates. Shockingly, its newest near-total abortion ban contains no exceptions for rape or incest. When asked about this, Gov. Greg Abbott said, “Texas will work tirelessly to make sure that we eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas.”

Abbott’s disturbing pledge fits in line with a tried-and-true political strategy: claim to address a public health issue by pivoting to crime control. But as history has taught us, public health crises will not be solved in the prosecutor’s office or by claiming to be tough on crime.