Professor Greer Donley is a national expert on abortion and the law. Donley has published widely and been quoted extensively in the media, especially on topics related to medication abortion, interjurisdictional abortion conflicts, and the impact of abortion bans on other aspects of reproductive healthcare.
Donley’s scholarly works have been published in the Stanford Law Review, Columbia Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review, and Minnesota Law Review. Her popular writing often appears in the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, and Slate. Her paper, The New Abortion Battleground, co-authored with David S. Cohen and Rachel Rebouché, was downloaded over 20,000 times, covered widely in the media, and cited by the Supreme Court’s dissent in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, Professor Donley has regularly applied her expertise to advocacy work. Professor Donley helped design, draft, and pass the first abortion shield law in Connecticut, which has now been replicated in many states and cities. She also helped draft an FDA Law Scholars amicus brief in the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA case and was one of two primary drafters of a citizen petition to the FDA to add miscarriage management to the mifepristone label.
Donley’s scholarship, advocacy, and teaching have been recognized through a variety of awards, including a Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award (junior category), Marion Young Award for Political Engagement, Robert T. Harper Excellence in Teaching Award, Haub Law Emerging Scholar Award in Women, Gender & Law, and SLU & ASLME Health Law Scholar Award. In 2022, she was the 11th most downloaded law professor on SSRN.
Before joining academia in 2018,Donley was an associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Latham & Watkins, LLP where she advised a variety of healthcare clients in fraud and abuse, administrative law, and FDA law. She also served as a law clerk for the Honorable Robert Sack on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Before law school, she was a fellow in the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health. She graduated Magna Cum Laude and Order of the Coif from the University of Michigan Law School, serving as an Editor-in-Chief of the Michigan Journal of Gender & Law.
- JD, University of Michigan Law School
Education & Training
- Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award
- Marion Young Award for Political Engagement
- Robert T. Harper Excellence in Teaching Award
- Haub Law Emerging Scholar Award in Women, Gender & Law
Selected Scholarly Articles
- Abortion Pills, 76 Stan. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2024)
- Abortion Shield Laws, 2 NEJM Evidence (2023) (with David S. Cohen and Rachel Rebouché)
- The New Abortion Battleground, 123 Colum. L. Rev. 1 (2023) (with David S. Cohen and Rachel Rebouché)
- Rethinking Strategy After Dobbs, 75 Stanford L. Rev. Online 1 (2022)(with David S. Cohen and Rachel Rebouché)
- Abortion, Pregnancy Loss, and Subjective Fetal Personhood, 75 Vand. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2022) (with Jill Wieber Lens).
- Medication Abortion Exceptionalism, 107 Cornell L. Rev. (forthcoming 2021)
- Second Trimester Abortion Dangertalk, 62 B.C. L. Rev. 2145 (2021) (with Jill Wieber Lens)
- Parental Autonomy over Prenatal End-of-Life-Decisions, 105 Minn. L. Rev. 175 (2020)
- Contraceptive Equity: Curing the Sex Discrimination in the ACA’s Mandate, 71 Ala. L. Rev. 499 (2019)
- Regulation of Encapsulated Placenta, 86 Tenn. L. Rev. 225 (2019) (lead article)
- Encouraging Maternal Sacrifice: How Regulations Governing the Consumption of Pharmaceuticals in Pregnancy Prioritize Fetal Safety over Maternal Health and Autonomy, 39 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change 45 (2015)
Selected Presentations
- National Association of Appellate Court Attorneys (NAACA) Conference, Plenary Talk: A Post-Dobbs World: The Future of Medication Abortion and the Landscape of Reproductive Rights Since Dobbs (July 13, 2023)
- ASLME Health Law Professors Conference, Plenary Panel: Supreme Court Decisions and Their Implications for Our Health (July 13, 2023)
- University of Michigan Bioethics Grand Rounds Presentation: The Coming Interjurisdictional Abortion Wars (Nov. 16, 2022)
- University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine & Department of Medical Ethics Panel: The Wide Reach of Dobbs: Impacts Beyond Abortion (Nov. 9, 2022)
- Harvard Law School Reproductive Justice Series Talk, The New Abortion Battleground: Interjurisdictional Conflicts and State Shield Laws (Oct. 19, 2022)
- University of Pittsburgh University-Wide Ground Rounds Panel, Ensuring Patient-Centered Care in a Post-Roe World (Sept. 6, 2022)
- Yale Law’s Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy Panel: Abortion Before the Supreme Court - What to Expect When Dobbs is Decided (June 22, 2022)
- Harvard Law School’s Petrie-Flom “Diagnosing in the Home” Conference Panel; “Telabortion:” Virtual Care for Medication Abortion and the Future of Abortion Access (June 15, 2022)
- University of Chicago, Institute of Politics Panel, Preparing for a Post-Roe America (May 23, 2022).
- Yale Law School’s Reproductive Roundtable Talk; Subjective Fetal Personhood (April 12, 2022)
Selected Popular Media
- We Need to Talk About Overturning the Dobbs Decision, N.Y. Times (June 24, 2023) (with David S. Cohen and Rachel Rebouché)
- The Stakes in The Texas Abortion Medication Suit Are Broader Than Just One Pill, Washington Post (March 3, 2023) (with Rachel Sachs)
- Actually, One Texas Judge Is Not the Final Decision-Maker on Medication Abortion, Slate (February 28, 2023) (with David S. Cohen and Rachel Rebouché)
- The FDA’s Step Forward on Medication Abortion Isn’t Even Close to Enough, Slate (Jan. 5, 2023) (with David S. Cohen and Rachel Rebouché)
- The Case Against Medical Abortion Rejects Science and Embraces Falsehoods, The Hill (Nov. 27, 2022) (with Patricia Zettler)
- Why Do We Talk About Miscarriage Differently From Abortion?, N.Y. Times (Aug. 2, 2022) (with Jill Wieber Lens)
- Reproductive Healthcare is at Risk Post-Roe, Time (June 24, 2022) (with Jill Wieber Lens)
- Abortion Pills Will Change a Post-Roe World, N.Y. Times (June 23, 2022) (with David Cohen and Rachel Rebouché)
- How to Save Women’s Lives After Roe, Atlantic (June 13, 2022) (with Kimberly Chernoby)
- States Want to Ban Abortions Beyond Their Borders. Here’s What Pro-Choice States Can Do, N.Y. Times (March 13, 2022) (with David Cohen and Rachel Rebouché)
- Joe Biden Can’t Save Roe v. Wade Alone. But He Can Do This, N.Y. Times (Dec. 30, 2021) (with David Cohen and Rachel Rebouché)
- Biden Could Expand Abortion Access, Even Without the Senate, Atlantic (Nov. 28, 2020)
Abortion
Contraception
Reproductive rights and justice
Bioethics
Health law
FDA law
