On Thursday, September 27 at 10 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. in the Faculty Lounge, ACS, along with the Federalist Society, will host a panel discussion entitled "Reproductive Freedoms in a Comparative Setting" as part of YLS' Global Constitutionalism Seminar. The panel will feature the following current and former jurists:

• Justice Sabino Cassese, Constitutional Court of Italy;
• Justice Jose Ramon Cossio Diaz, Supreme Court of Mexico;
• Justice Manuel Cepeda Espinosa, Constitutional Court of Colombia;
• Justice Lech Garlicki, European Court of Human Rights;
• Justice Dieter Grimm, formerly of the Constitutional Court of Germany.
• Professor Susanna Mancini of the University of Bologna;
• Professor Robert Post of Yale Law School;
• Professor Reva Siegel of Yale Law School.

The Justices will be discussing the following cases (click to download in .pdf format):

• Final Judgment no. 27/1975 (Constitutional Court of Italy)
• West German Abortion Decision
• Decision C-355/06 (Constitutional Court of Colombia)
• Tysiac v. Poland (ECHR)

The Justices have been asked to address four questions:

1. Does your constitutional law recognize the state's interest in protecting unborn life and women's interests in ending a pregnancy? If so, how does your constitutional law balance or co-ordinate these two competing values?
2. Is this area of the law a site of significant political controversy?
3. Is there a difference between the formal constitutional law of abortion and the actual practice of abortion?
4. Does it matter to your constitutional jurisprudence how the law of other jurisdictions or international human rights law handles the question of reproductive freedom?

Time will be reserved for student questions.