Bridgette Dunlap

Bridgette Dunlap is a lawyer and a scholar whose work centers on public understanding of and access to legal systems. She has been a legal analyst for Rewire, a staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, and a fellow and adjunct professor at the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice
at Fordham Law School. She is the author of the articles

Anyone Can ‘Think Like a Lawyer’: How the Lawyers’ Monopoly on Legal Understanding Undermines Democracy and the Rule of Law in the United States

(Fordham Law Review),

Protecting the Space to Be Unveiled: Why France’s Full Veil Ban Does not Violate the European Convention on Human Rights

(Fordham International Law Journal), and

The Rule of Law Without Lawyers: American Legal Reformers and the Cambodian Lawyer Shortage

(working paper).

All Work

Commentary Law and Policy

Kavanaugh’s Easily Disproved Statements Are Right Out of Trump’s Playbook When It Comes to Alleged Assault

Sep 26, 2:59pm

Judge Brett Kavanaugh will likely repeat his claims to have been a Boy Scout who never ever behaved less than honorably with women on Thursday.

Commentary Law and Policy

Three Constitutional Basics Every Abortion Rights Supporter Should Know

Jun 17, 1:01pm

As the biggest reproductive rights case in decades looms in the U.S. Supreme Court, it's more important than ever for advocates to be well informed.

Commentary Law and Policy

Here’s What You Need to Know About Your Birth Control Access Post-Supreme Court Ruling

Jun 9, 2:35pm

Yes, the Zubik v. Burwell case challenged the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive coverage mandate. But that shouldn't stop you from getting your reproductive health needs met—without a co-payment.

Commentary Violence

How Anonymous Does More Harm Than Good for Sexual Assault Victims

Feb 10, 5:54pm

Women don’t need to be avenged by "white knights." We need the knowledge and the legal resources to vindicate our rights ourselves.

Analysis Violence

What the Blogosphere Got Dangerously Wrong About the Renisha McBride Case

Nov 19, 10:47am Bridgette Dunlap

We should be outraged about McBride’s death, and many people have been, channeling their anger into blog posts and online petitions. But many of the people who have commented on the story with their hearts in the right place have gotten two key facts of the case wrong—and those misrepresented facts could have dangerous consequences.

Analysis Law and Policy

Learn Your Rights: Touching a Pregnant Person’s Stomach Is Illegal, and Has Been for Some Time

Nov 5, 4:17pm Bridgette Dunlap

Numerous media outlets are reporting that Pennsylvania has banned the touching of a pregnant person’s belly without permission with a “new” or “renewed” or “expanded” law. However, it is already illegal to touch a person without consent in every state, pregnant or not.

Commentary Abortion

Off-Campus Catholic Conservatives Meddle With Abortion Coverage for Loyola Marymount Faculty

Oct 2, 9:53am

Having to fight your employer for health-care equity is bad; having to fight whoever else has an opinion on it is worse.

Commentary Abortion

My Short-Lived Hope for a More Compassionate Catholic Church

Sep 24, 10:44am

Pope Francis said he objects to “laboratories” where out-of-touch people in power develop solutions to problems they don’t understand. Yet it seems those efforts don't include a willingness to try and understand actual women’s lives.

Analysis Contraception

The Final Contraceptive Coverage Rule: Why You Should Stay Away From Any Organization That ‘Self-Certifies’

Jul 8, 8:48am Bridgette Dunlap

The Obama administration once again bends over backwards to accommodate "religious institutions" at the expense of religious freedom and public health, with unknown consequences down the line.

Analysis Law and Policy

Why a Catholic School Teacher Was Fired for an IVF Pregnancy—And Why She Was Awarded $171,000 (UPDATED)

Jun 10, 7:00pm Bridgette Dunlap

The Archdiocese of Cincinnati argued that although Christa Dias was hired to teach computer classes and is not Catholic, she was still considered a minister of the Catholic Church and therefore could be fired for not adhering to Catholic teachings about IVF. But Dias won in court.

Analysis Violence

No, Texas Law Does Not Say You Can Shoot an Escort Who Refuses to Have Sex

Jun 8, 12:27pm Bridgette Dunlap

A misreading of the verdict in an upsetting Texas case has gone viral, since Gawker claimed: “Texas Says It's OK to Shoot an Escort If She Won't Have Sex With You.” Texas law does not say that, and the jury didn’t either. This story looks very different depending on if you are looking at the law or the reporting.

Commentary Abortion

Defending the Right to Bodily Integrity: The Reproductive Justice Movement and Force-Feeding at Guantanamo

May 10, 12:32pm

Given our commitment to recognizing and dismantling systems of oppression that deny individuals self-determination and bodily integrity, reproductive justice advocates must demand an end to force-feeding at Guantanamo.

Analysis Abortion

The Bishops’ Lawsuit: A Colossal and Purposeful Drain on Public Funds

Apr 28, 10:39pm Bridgette Dunlap

The government is hemorrhaging money defending a regulation it will never enforce against the New York Archdiocese.

Analysis Contraception

Self-Certification and the Contraceptive Coverage Rule: What Does it Mean for an Institution to “Hold Itself Out as Religious?”

Apr 1, 10:50pm Bridgette Dunlap

Some religiously-affiliated institutions characterize themselves as "secular" when recruiting or seeking public funding but "church-controlled" when demanding exemptions from the law, such as the birth control benefit. Potential employees, students, and patients—as well as taxpayers generally—deserve to know who they are dealing with.

As recently as 1972, you could go to jail for giving contraception to an unmarried person. And William Baird did. Eight times. In five different states.

Analysis Contraception

Eisenstadt v. Baird: The 41st Anniversary of Legal Contraception for Single People

Mar 22, 11:07am Bridgette Dunlap

On the eve of the anniversary, Rewire spoke with William Baird, from the landmark Eisenstadt v. Baird case, about his reproductive health efforts past and present.

Commentary Religion

Contradictions and Conservatism Muddle Hopes for Change Under Jesuit Pope

Mar 14, 5:39pm

Bergoglio's past statements show a lack of understanding of how fundamental reproductive autonomy is to economic justice.

Commentary Abortion

As Notre Dame Appeals Birth Control Benefit, Costs to Catholic Universities of Discriminatory Health Plans Increase

Mar 5, 9:20am

It is now clear that no “compromise” short of freeing all health plans from any regulation whatsoever having to do with contraception will placate fundamentalist Catholic groups. But with the Notre Dame appeal also comes evidence that the costs of these suits to Catholic universities is rising.

Analysis Abortion

Unethical, Cruel, and Likely Illegal: Anti-Choicers Make Family’s Tragedy Public Without Their Consent

Feb 28, 8:12am Bridgette Dunlap

Anti-choice activist Jill Stanek recently published online the name and photo of a woman who passed away following a late-term abortion at the Maryland clinic of Dr. Leroy Carhart. Beyond being unethical and unbelievably cruel, making her family’s tragedy public without their consent was likely illegal.

Analysis Contraception

For It Before They Were Against It: Catholic Universities and Birth Control

Feb 13, 9:23pm Bridgette Dunlap

Did you know that from the sixties through the nineties, clergy and faculty at Notre Dame, Georgetown, and other Catholic-affiliated universities lobbied for coverage of birth control? And argued for the moral imperative of providing coverage for contraception... even on campus?

Analysis Abortion

The Originalist Argument for Abortion Rights: Compulsory Childbearing During Antebellum Slavery and Its Relevance Today

Jan 22, 7:37am Bridgette Dunlap

There is no mention of abortion in the Constitution so it can’t be protected. However, in a recent essay, Andrew Koppelman challenges this assertion on originalist grounds: forced reproduction was intrinsic to slavery, which the framers of the Thirteenth Amendment sought to prohibit.

Commentary Politics

A Question for Anti-Choicers: How, Exactly, Would Your Rape Exception Work?

Oct 18, 11:43am

No politician or pundit should get away with claiming he supports any “exception” without facing the obvious follow-up question: “How, exactly, would it work?”

Analysis Contraception

UPDATE: A Closer Look at the Contraceptive Coverage Lawsuits: The Radical Agenda Behind the Fight Over Religious Exemptions

Oct 1, 10:25am Bridgette Dunlap

Thirty lawsuits have been filed by corporations challenging the HHS regulation requiring that most health plans cover contraceptives. A survey of these cases yields some useful information as to what the “religious freedom” debate is all about.

Commentary Contraception

USCCB Makes False Statement about Contraception Mandate Ruling

Jul 31, 5:05pm

On Friday, the USCCB tweeted this demonstrably false statement: "Federal judge finds HHS mandate violates conscience rights of private employer." That did not happen.

Commentary Religion

Why the USCCB’s “Religious Freedom” Argument Is a Lie

Jul 16, 8:00am

The recent Huffington Post article by Sister Mary Ann Walsh of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops tells us quite a bit about the veracity of the USCCB’s claims that religious freedom is under attack in the United States.

Commentary Contraception

Despite State Birth Control Mandate, Fordham Law Students Lack Access to Affordable Contraception Even for Medical Reasons

Feb 16, 8:41pm

Under New York State's law mandating insurance coverage for contraception, Fordham was able to accept that religiously-affiliated entities that want to sell products in the marketplace like insurance and federally-subsidized education must meet the same quality standards as non-religious organizations. Unfortunately, despite state law, Fordham still fails to guarantee access to affordable contraception.

Commentary Contraception

Fordham Law Students’ Health Clinic a Success, But University Still Refuses to Divulge Health Care Policies

Dec 4, 9:08pm

Last week, the Fordham Law School chapter of Law Students for Reproductive Justice held an off-campus clinic to provide access to birth control prescriptions and condoms to students of our Catholic University. It was a greater success than we had hoped for, but the University still refuses to clarify its policies, much less prescribe contraception.

News Contraception

Law Students Fight Fordham University’s Bait and Switch on Coverage of Birth Control

Nov 28, 1:31pm Bridgette Dunlap

Fordham University prohibits the prescription of contraception at its health centers and the distribution of condoms on campus though many students aren't aware of that until they've paid for the school's insurance or visited the health center. Many are denied birth control even when facing health risks. This week, law students at the Catholic school are taking matters into their own hands by organizing a clinic just off-campus.