Coordinators: Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Ana Cristina Santos e Madalena Duarte

Date: 7 and 8 January 2008

Objectives: Several socio-juridical analyses carried out at worldwide level show that recognition of legality depends on how notions of duty are counterbalanced by notions of necessity or other, multiple and sharply situational acceptations of justice. Privately made decisions in the field of reproduction may lead to a veiled conflict between formal justice and socially accepted practices. The coexistence of two opposing forms of legality may never be directly translated into forms of illegality or felony. In the field of reproductive health, Portugal displays many of these features.

Much has been written about the specificities of the juridical framing of reproduction and their impact on women’s lives. But up to the present there has been a deficit in the analysis of the unexpected uses of the law carried out by women for whom notions of justice do not necessarily coincide with those conveyed by formal juridical codes. Once again, a distance emerges between “the law in books” and “the law in action”, one of the basic themes of the sociology of law which served as the lodestar for the project “Representations of (il-)legalities: the case of reproductive health in Portugal”. This course aims at pondering the preliminary findings of this project, which was centred primarily on terminations – their representations and their social struggles – in the light of sexual and reproductive health in Portugal and of experiences in other countries. Target audience: teachers, NGO leaders and activists, students in higher education, researchers, policy-makers, health professionals, legal professionals, the public in general.

Contents:

7 January: 10H00 – 11H00 – Presentation of the course and of the theme
Training Provider: Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Centre for Social Studies

7 January: 11H15 – 12H30 – Sexual and reproductive health in Portugal: old and new issues
Training Provider: Duarte Vilar, Family Planning Association

Lunch

7 January: 14H30-15H50 – The decriminalisation of abortion in Portugal: discourses, dynamics, and collective action
Training providers: Ana Cristina Santos and Magda Alves, Centre for Social Studies

7 January: 16H00-17H30 – The Women on Waves experience*
Training Provider: Rebecca Gomperts, Women On Waves
*the language used for this session will be English

8 January: 10H00-11H00 – Attitudes and values vis-a-vis abortion
Training Provider: Ana Cristina Santos

8 January: 11H15-12H30 – Representations of (il)legalities: the case of abortion in Portugal
Training Provider: Madalena Duarte and Carlos Barradas, Centre for Social Studies

Lunch

8 January: 14H30-16H00 – The experience of Pro-Choice Roman Catholic Women
Training Provider: Alcilene Cavalcante, Pro-Choice Roman Catholic Women

8 January: 16H10-17H30 – Debate with all the participants
Training Providers: Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Ana Cristina Santos and Madalena Duarte

Registering (max. 30 persons)

Venue: CES

Registration deadline: 30 December 2007

Price: Teachers, Students and the Unwaged: 25 Euros; Other: 50 Euros

At the end of the course, participants will receive a certificate of attendance.