Washington and Lee Law professor Carliss N. Chatman discussed her article “If a Fetus Is a Person, It Should Get Child Support, Due Process, and Citizenship” on a May 4 episode of the Ipse Dixit podcast.
First appearing as an editorial in The Washington Post on May 17, 2019 and inspired by her own viral tweet a week earlier, Chatman’s article is now republished in the Washington and Lee Law Review Online as the center of a “roundtable” series of responses from other scholars. Another of the roundtable authors, Professor Anthony Michael Kreis of the Chicago-Kent College of Law, joined Chatman on the podcast.
In her article, Chatman argues that recent state laws intended to make fetuses persons with regard to abortion law should also recognize fetuses as persons for other legal purposes and rights. Kreis’s response reflects on the larger constitutional debate over reproductive rights in historical context. The episode was hosted by Brian L. Frye, an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Kentucky.
Chatman joined the W&L Law faculty in 2018 and is an Assistant Professor of Law. Her teaching and scholarship interests are in the fields of corporate law, ethics, and civil procedure. Follow Professor Chatman on Twitter at @carlissc.
