TRAP BILLS, ABORTION
Fernanda Oliveira
Email: fernandaoliveira2022@u.northwestern.edu
Faculty Advisor: joanna.grisinger@northwestern.edu
BIO
Fernanda Oliveira is graduating this spring with a double major in English Literature and Legal Studies. She is currently working as a research assistant for N3, and spent the last summer doing investigative research for POGO. She would like to thank her cat, Oliver, for emotionally supporting her while she finished her thesis.
Q&A
I studied the enactment of TRAP legislation in Louisiana, focusing on the arguments that were
used by legislators to promote these anti-abortion laws. I found that stereotypes about
women played a major role in the enactment of this legislation.
I’ve always been interested in the fight for abortion rights, and considering recent events,
it’s a topic that I think deserves more attention and scrutiny. I focused on TRAP laws
because they’ve commonly been overlooked as a strategy to remove bodily autonomy
from women, and focused on Louisiana because that state has had a rich history of
passing these specific laws.
With Roe v. Wade being threatened by the Supreme Court, I see my work contributing to
a larger conversation of why women’s rights to their own bodies are not respected. The
stereotypes that I witnessed in Louisiana clearly exist on a much larger level, and I believe
they played a major role in this decision to overturn Roe v. Wade as well.
I’m moving to Washington, D.C. to work for a law firm!
