Carol Sanger
- Barbara Aronstein Black Professor Emerita of Law
Education
J.D., University of Michigan, 1976
B.A., Wellesley College, 1970
Areas of Specialty
Contracts
Family Law
Abortion Law
An award-winning teacher and influential scholar of reproductive rights, Carol Sanger writes and teaches courses on contracts, family law, the legal profession, and law and gender. Her most recent book, About Abortion: Terminating Pregnancy in the 21st Century, addresses the regulation of abortion and maternal conduct, surrogacy, and the law’s relation to culture. She is also a co-editor of the Cases and Material on Contracts (8th edition) and other books.
Since joining the Columbia Law School faculty in 1996, Sanger has been recognized for her dedication to students and teaching: She has received the Law School’s Willis L.M. Reese Prize for Excellence in Teaching, Columbia University’s Presidential Teaching Award, Social Justice Initiatives’ Outstanding Public Interest Faculty Member of the Year, and the Columbia Law Women’s Association’s Myra Bradwell Award for her commitment to mentoring female law students.
Sanger began her law career in San Francisco as a commercial litigation associate in private practice. She first taught at the University of Oregon Law School and then Santa Clara University. Sanger has also been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, Stanford Law School, the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and the University of Oxford, where she was elected an honorary fellow of Mansfield College in recognition of her “world-renowned scholarship in the common law of contract, women’s rights, and research in human rights law.”
Publications
March 2017
Harvard University Press
Stigma and hostility has stifled women’s willingness to talk about abortion, which in turn distorts public and political discussion. To pry open the silence surrounding this public issue, Carol Sanger distinguishes between abortion privacy, a form of nondisclosure based on a woman’s desire to control personal information, and abortion secrecy, a woman’s defense against the many harms of disclosure.
- “The Lopsided Harms of Reproductive Negligence,” Columbia Law Review, 2018
- “Closets, Standards, Abortion: A Reply to Professor Pozen,” Columbia Journal of Gender and Law, 2017
- “Contracting for Motherhood: Post-adoption Visitation Agreements,” Bodies and Borders: Negotiating Motherhood in the 21st Century, Columbia University Press, 2016
- Cases and Materials on Contracts (with Cohen, Brooks, and Garvin) (8th edition), 2013
- “Acquiring Children Contractually: Relational Contracts at Work at Home,” Revisiting the Contracts Scholarship of Stewart Macaulay (Jean Braucher, John Kidwell, and William C Whitford, eds.), Hart Publishing, 2013
- “Bargaining for Motherhood: Postadoption Visitation Agreements,” Hofstra Law Review 41:2, 2013
- “About Abortion: The Complications of the Category,” Arizona Law Review 54:4, 2013
- “‘The Birth of Death’: Stillborn Birth Certificates and the Problem for Law,” 100 California Law Review 269, 2012
- “Integrating Humanities into Family Law and the Problem with Truths Universally Acknowledged,” 3 California Law Review Circuit, 2012
- “Decisional Dignity: Teenage Abortion, Bypass Hearings, and the Misuse of Law,” 18 Columbia Journal of Gender and Law 409, 2009
- “Seeing and Believing: Mandatory Ultrasound and the Path to a Protected Choice,” 56 UCLA Law Review 351, 2008
- “Developing Markets in Baby-Making: In the Matter of Baby M,” 29 Harvard J. Law & Gender, 2007
- Family Law Stories, Foundation Press, 2007
- Gender and Rights (with Deborah Rhode), The International Library of Essays in Law and Legal Theory, Second Series (Ashgate/Dartmouth), 2005
Honors and Awards
Columbia University Presidential Teaching Award
Willis L.M. Reese Prize for Excellence in Teaching
Innovations in Scholarship Award, the Center for Reproductive Rights
Honorary Fellow, Mansfield College
News and Press
- “Why It’s Become So Hard to Get An Abortion,” The New Yorker
- “Beyond Roe v. Wade: Here’s What Gorsuch Means for Abortion,” Bloomberg BusinessWeek
- “Norma McCorvey, Donald Tr**p and American Women Today,” New York Daily News
- “Supreme Court Nominee Neil Gorsuch is a Downpayment on Tr**p’s Promise to Overturn Roe v. Wade,” The Intercept
- “Donald Tr**p is the Most Unlikely Anti-Abortion President Ever,” Newsweek
- “Roe v. Wade attorney: Tr**p is biggest threat yet to reproductive rights,” NBC News
- “Get Ready for a New Chapter in the Long Legal War Over Abortion,” Vice
- “Fake News, Fake Science and Why Doctors Lie About Abortion,” New York Magazine
- “The Conversation: Shining a Light on Abortion: Carol Sanger,” Hawaii Public Radio
- “Who owns frozen embryos?” The Verge
- “The Abortion Trial Everyone Will Be Watching In Tr**p’s America,” BuzzFeed
- “Tr**p’s anti-abortion pledge threatens women's rights, NY activists argue,” Metro
- “‘It will be devastating’: Women’s rights at risk under Tr**p presidency,” The Globe and Mail
- “Are Abortion and Other Reproductive Rights in Jeopardy Under President Tr**p?” Popsugar
- “Health Cases to Watch in the 2nd Half of 2016,” Law360
- “Abortion Politics in the Age of Zika,” U.S. News & World Report
- “Why Sex-Selective Abortion Bans Are Terrible for Women and Unconstitutional,” Slate
- “New Law Opens Birth Certificates, Sparks Questions,” National Public Radio, Tell Me More
- “50th State Passes No-Fault Divorce Bill – But is it Good for Women?” Lemondrop
- “Safe Haven Laws Fail to End Discarding of Babies,” The New York Times
- “Interview on Abortion in the United States,” Radio France (Culture)
- “Fathers Fight for Paternal Rights,” National Public Radio, Talk of the Nation
- “Unwed Fathers Fight for Babies Placed for Adoption by Mothers,” The New York Times
- “Tied in Knots by Gay Marriage: The Politics of Bush’s Amendment to the Culture Wars Are Complex for Both Parties,” U.S. News & World Report
- “A Teenage Boy Seeks to Sever Ties with Father,” CBS Evening News
- “Ideas & Trends: Untying the Knot; For Better or Worse: Marriage’s Stormy Future,” The New York Times
- “The Nation: Taking After Father; A Frozen Sperm Riddle,” The New York Times
- “Among Nuptial Agreements, Post- Has Now Joined Pre-,” The New York Times
- “In Genetic Testing for Paternity, Law Often Lags Behind Science,” The New York Times
- “The Elian Gonzalez Case: The Legal Questions,” The New York Times
- “The Nation: Just Visiting; Defining Who Can See the Children,” The New York Times
- “Part-Time Work for Some Adds Up to Full-Time Job,” The New York Times
- “The Right Thing; Between Consenting Co-Workers,” The New York Times
