In Conversation: Beyond Roe: What Now? – FESCH.TV

FESCH.TV INFORMIERT:

In Conversation
Beyond Roe: What Now?

Event will be streamed to Vimeo and Facebook at 6:30pm Wednesday June 29

In a historic and far-reaching decision, the U.S. Supreme Court officially reversed Roe v. Wade on Friday, declaring that the constitutional right to abortion, upheld for nearly a half century, no longer exists.

Writing for the court majority, Justice Samuel Alito said that the 1973 Roe ruling and repeated subsequent high court decisions reaffirming Roe „must be overruled“ because they were „egregiously wrong,“ the arguments „exceptionally weak“ and so „damaging“ that they amounted to „an abuse of judicial authority.“

The decision, most of which was leaked in early May, means that abortion rights will be rolled back in nearly half of the states immediately, with more restrictions likely to follow. For all practical purposes, abortion will not be available in large swaths of the country. The decision may well mean too that the court itself, as well as the abortion question, will become a focal point in the upcoming fall elections and in the fall and thereafter.

(Credit NPR)

Arkansas’s trigger ban was signed into effect on Friday afternoon by Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, making abortion illegal in Arkansas with no exemptions for rape or incest.

INTERFORM CEO Robin Atkinson will sit down with Dr. Lisa Corrigan, Director of the Gender Studies Program at the University of Arkansas, to discuss the effects this will have on women, and those who can experience pregnancy, in Arkansas and beyond. Question can be submitted in advance to robin@interform.art

Speaker Bios:

Dr. Lisa M. Corrigan is a Professor of
Communication, Director of the Gender Studies
Program at the University of Arkansas. Her first book, Prison Power: How Prison Influenced the Movement for Black Liberation (2016: University Press of Mississippi), won the 2017 Diamond Anniversary Book Award and the 2017 African American Communication and Culture Division Outstanding Book Award, both from the National Communication Association. Her book, Black Feelings: Race and Affect in the Long Sixties (2020: University Press of Mississippi) was the Honorable Mention for the Marie Hochmuth Nichols Book Prize in Public Address Scholarship. Her newest edited volumed, #MeToo: A Rhetorical Zeitgeist (Routledge, 2021) examines the #MeToo moment as a crucible for political conversations about consent and violence. Finally, she co-hosts the popular podcast, Lean Back: Critical Feminist Conversations, with Laura Weiderhaft, and she has worked as a political consultant for over 25 years.

Robin Wallis Atkinson is the CEO of INTERFORM (formerly known as NWA Fashion Week and Arkansas Arts & Fashion Forum). Her professional career as a curator and arts organizer got its start here in Northwest Arkansas in the early 2000s. One of the founding members of Art Amiss Inc., Atkinson has been an active participant in the Northwest Arkansas art community for more than a decade. Atkinson has lived and worked in New Orleans, New York, and The Netherlands. She has contributed to international art exhibitions such a Prospect New Orleans, the ground-breaking contemporary art biennial that opened in 2008, collaborated with museums and galleries across Europe and in Asia, and has taught curatorial curriculum at the early college level in Manhattan. Her work is focused on the role of arts in the community and art’s relationship to place. In addition to curatorial work, Atkinson also serves selectively as an art consultant for private collections, as well as for non-profit organizations on the topics of community development, cultural programming, and non-profit financial management. She holds BA in Art History from the University of Arkansas and a Masters of Curatorial Studies from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College in New York.