Deadline
Award Amount

$750

Winning authors will receive cash prizes: $750 (first place), $500 (second place), or $250 (third place). Additionally, each winning author will receive a copy of the casebook Cases on Reproductive Rights and Justice, by Melissa Murray and Kristin Luker. The first place winner will also have a chance at publication with the NYU Review of Law and Social Change.


If/When/How, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and the Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice at U.C. Berkeley School of Law invite submissions for the twelfth annual Sarah Weddington Writing Prize for New Student Scholarship in Reproductive Rights.

The first place winning submission will have a presumption of publishability and receive expedited review by New York University School of Law's Review of Law and Social Change. Winning authors will also receive cash prizes: $750 (1st place), $500 (2nd place), or $250 (3rd place) in addition to a copy of Melissa Murray's and Kristin Luker's Cases on Reproductive Rights and Justice.

Scope & Themes: The co-sponsoring organizations seek student scholarship exploring reproductive rights and justice issues in the United States. We encourage writing that amplifies lesser-heard voices, suggests innovative solutions, and takes into account the realities and the lived experiences of the people most affected by reproductive oppression. We encourage students to think expansively about reproductive rights and justice (RR/RJ) and to analyze issues using an intersectional lens - considering the impact of demographic and institutional factors such as race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, and immigration status.

All submissions on RR/RJ topics are welcomed. Our suggested theme this year is: Balancing Burdens and Benefits after Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt: In evaluating burdens faced by individuals seeking abortion care, the Supreme Court explained that any purported health benefits of Texas's HB2 were not "sufficient to justify the burdens upon access that each imposes." The Court identified a range of burdens imposed, including clinic closures, increased travel distances, longer waiting times, and less opportunity for individualized medical attention. How might evidence of the burdens that weigh most heavily against poor pregnant people such as out-of-pocket costs for abortions not covered by Medicaid, lost wages, travel time, and childcare factor into courts' analysis using the balancing test going forward? What other type of restrictive reproductive rights and justice regulations are subject to challenge under this new balancing test?