In a classic work of feminist theory, The Mermaid and the Minotaur, Dorothy Dinnerstein described her project this way:
“[T]o fight what seems about to destroy everything earthly that you love—to fight it not passively . . . , with denial; and not unrealistically, with blind force; but intelligently, armed with your central resource, which is passionate curiosity—is for me the human way to live until you die.”
That passage captures perfectly Sherry Colb’s work, particularly her own feminist project related to reproductive autonomy and abortion rights. That project was marked by a willingness to engage with a wide variety of arguments (for example, Sherry’s response to “pro-life feminists”), a talent for making striking connections (for example, Sherry’s comparisons between human and animal motherhood), and a fierce wit (for example, titles like Ah, Look at All the Potential People and Commander Sam Alito, At Your Cervix).
One of the signal virtues of Sherry’s scholarship across doctrinal areas was her flair for creating taxonomies. In 2009, Sherry identified and then plumbed two distinct interests underlying the abortion right—the “Offspring Selection Interest” and the “Bodily Integrity Interest.” The offspring selection interest encompasses an interest (either individual or societal) in deciding whether and when to have offspring. The bodily integrity interest refers to one’s ability to protect one’s body “against unwanted occupation.” A decade later, Sherry identified what she described as a third, “new,” interest that “goes unexpressed by the Bodily Integrity Interest and the Offspring Selection Interest alone.” This interest, which Sherry termed the “Interest in Never Having Loved at All (the INHLAA),” centers on a woman’s “interest in protecting herself from becoming attached and bonded to someone with whom she will be forced, by third parties or by circumstances beyond her control, to surrender and mourn.” To my mind, the INHLAA is actually a species of the offspring selection interest, understood broadly, because it reflects a woman’s interest in not having offspring with whom she will be unable to maintain a continuing bond after they are born. But either way, Sherry’s analysis contributed to the argument for allowing women to choose.
In the final months of her life, Sherry published a series of posts at Dorf on Law regarding the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. These posts suggest yet a further refinement to Sherry’s original framework. Sherry’s response to Dobbs sketches the contours of a feminist version of Isaiah Berlin’s foundational idea of “positive liberty” in which women are “deciding, not being decided for” and “conceiving”—there’s that freighted word—“goals and policies of [their] own and realizing them.” This fourth interest is centered on a woman’s equal entitlement to be treated as an end in herself, rather than as a means for pursuing some external actor’s goals. This essay traces the evolution in Sherry’s thought.
To read this Article, please click here: A Pro-Feminist Life: Sherry Colb and Abortion Rights.
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