Biography
Greer Donley is a John E. Murray Faculty Scholar and Associate Professor of Law at the University Pittsburgh Law School. She is a national expert on abortion and the law. Professor 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, particularly pregnancy loss. Her popular writing often appears in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Time, the Boston Globe, Politico, Slate, the Hill, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Professor Donley’s scholarly works have been published or are forthcoming in the Columbia Law Review, Stanford Law Review Online, Cornell Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, Boston College Law Review, among others. Professor Donley’s co-authored paper, The New Abortion Battleground, has been downloaded over 16,000 times, covered widely in the media, and cited by the Supreme Court’s dissent in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. She and her co-authors, David S. Cohen and Rachel Rebouché, regularly work with legislators, advocates, government officials, and abortion providers to identify post-Roe legal strategies and address the interjurisdictional abortion crisis highlighted in their Article. They helped design, draft, and advocate for the first abortion shield law in Connecticut, which has now been replicated in many states and cities, often with their help.
In 2020, Professor Donley won two emerging scholar awards—the Haub Law Emerging Scholar Award in Women, Gender & Law and the SLU and ASLME Health Law Scholar Award—for her scholarship on contraceptive equity and the overregulation of medication abortion. In 2021, the Pitt Law graduating 3Ls voted to give her the Robert T. Harper Excellence in Teaching Award.
Before joining academia in 2018, Professor 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.
Professor Donley is the director of the joint degree program in law and bioethics and a core faculty member with the Center for Bioethics & Health Law, the Reproductive Bridges Coalition, and the Center for Innovative Research on Gender Health Equity. She is also on the board of the Women's Law Project.
Her publications can be found here.
Follow Donley on Twitter at @greerdonley.
Key/Recent Publications
- Rethinking Strategy After Dobbs, 75 Stanford L. Rev. Online 1 (2022) (with David S. Cohen and Rachel Rebouché).
- The New Abortion Battleground, 123 Colum. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2023) (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).
- The Legal and Medical Necessity of Abortion Care Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic, 28 J.L. & Biosciences 1 (2020).
- 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).
- Commentary on Burton v. State, in Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Health Law Options. (Seema Mohapatra and Lindsay F. Wiley, eds.) (under review by Cambridge University Press, expected publication 2022).
- 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).
- Does the Constitution Protect Abortions Based on Fetal Anomaly? Examining the Potential for Disability-Selective Abortion Bans in the Age of Prenatal Whole Genome Sequencing, 20 Mich. J. Gender & L. 291 (2013).
- Prenatal Whole Genome Sequencing: Just Because We Can, Should We?, 42 Hastings Ctr. Report 28 (2012) (with Sara Chandros Hull & Benjamin E. Berkman).
- Re-Thinking Strategy after Roe, 75 Stanford L. Rev. Online (Forthcoming 2022) (with David S. Cohen and Rachel Rebouché)
Popular Media
- Two Courts Ruled on Abortion in Emergencies. One Got it Right (Aug. 26, 2022) (with Kimberly Chernoby and Skye Perryman).
- The Intercept Podcast, What’s it Like to be A Red-State Abortion Doctor Post-Roe? (Aug. 26, 2022).
- Why Do We Talk About Miscarriage Differently From Abortion?, N.Y. Times (Aug. 2, 2022) (with Jill Weiber Lens)
- Can Kansas Cling to Abortion Rights?, Rolling Stone (Aug. 1, 2022) (with David Cohen and Rachel Rebouché)
- Scholar’s Circle Podcast, We Examine the Post-Roe World of Women’s Health Care (July 10, 2022)
- The Harshest Abortion Restrictions Are Yet to Come, Atlantic (July 11, 2022) (with David Cohen and Rachel Rebouché)
- Some Things Biden Could Actually Do About Abortion (Besides Just Tell You to Vote), Slate (July 6, 2022) (with David Cohen and Rachel Rebouché)
- It’s Time to Put Abortions on Federal Land, Boston Globe (July 1, 2022) (with David Cohen and Rachel Rebouché)
- Interview for CBS, Some States See Legal Challenges to Abortion Bans (June 27, 2022).
- Newsworthy Podcast, What’s Next in a Post-Roe America (June 24, 2022).
- 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)
- Interview for NBC, Future of Reproductive Rights May Be Digital Abortion Clinics (June 16, 2022)
- How to Save Women’s Lives After Roe, Atlantic (June 13, 2022) (with Kimberly Chernoby).
- The Coming Legal Battles Over Abortion Pills, Politico (May 24, 2022) (with David Cohen and Rachel Rebouché)
- Legal Face Off Podcast, Greer Donley on the SCOTUS Leak (May 17, 2022)
- Strict Scrutiny Podcast, What’s Next in a Post-Roe World (May 16, 2022)
- Four Collisions to Expect if Roe Is Repealed, Politico (May 5, 2022) (with David Cohen and Rachel Rebouché)
- The Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade Plan Would Condemn Women to Second-Class Citizenship, Rolling Stone (May 3, 2022) (with David Cohen and Rachel Rebouché).
- 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).
- Existing Federal Laws Could Protect Abortion Rights Even if Roe Is Overturned, Time (Jan. 24, 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).
- Progress in the Bid to Make Abortion Pills More Widely Available, Boston Globe (Dec. 22, 2021) (with David Cohen and Rachel Rebouché).
- The FDA's Telehealth Safety Net for Abortion only Stretches so Far, The Hill (Dec. 18, 2021) (with David Cohen and Rachel Rebouché).
- The Case that Could Save the Right to Abortion in Pennsylvania even if Roe Falls, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Dec. 9, 2021).
- The Messy Post-Roe Legal Future Awaiting America, Atlantic (Sept. 27, 2021) (with David Cohen and Rachel Rebouché).
- Pregnancy Loss, Abortion Rights, and a Holistic Reproductive Justice Movement, Bill of Health Blog (Sept. 22, 2021) (with Jill Wieber Lens).
- Biden Could Expand Abortion Access, Even Without the Senate, Atlantic (Nov. 28, 2020).
- Ipse Dixit Podcast, Greer Donley on Contraceptive Equity (Sept. 10, 2019).
- Removing Sex Stereotypes from Contraception, Pitt L. Magazine 20 (Fall 2019).
- Appearance on Buzzfeed’s morning news segment, AM2DM, on July 1, 2019, discussing sex discrimination in the contraceptive mandate.
- The Unintended Consequences of the Contraceptive Mandate, Atlantic (June 24, 2019).