News

Congratulations to Professor Joanna Erdman, whose book Abortion Law in Transnational Perspective was launched in Spanish in Mexico City in August. Six of the book’s 16 chapters are focused on the region or written by scholars from the region. The English edition of the book was first published in August 2014 by University of Pennsylvania Press. Prof. Erdman is a co-editor of the collected volume with Professors Rebecca Cook and Bernard Dickens of the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto.

A Spanish edition was warranted, says Erdman: "While the United States and Western Europe may have been the vanguard of abortion law reform in the latter half of the 20th century, Central and South America are proving to be laboratories of thought and innovation in the 21st century."

FCE-CIDE is the book’s Spanish publisher. FCE is Fondo de Cultural Económica, a Spanish-language non-profit publishing group with an 80-year history of being a leading participant in the higher-education system and cultural and literary movements of Mexico and Latin America. And CIDE is the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, one of the top universities in Mexico.

In Mexico City, the co-editors held a book panel and presentations with leading scholars at three universities: CIDE; Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM); and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM).

In addition, there was a public panel at the Fondo de Cultura Económica Rosario Castellanos, which is one of the publisher’s most famous bookstores. "That event was well attended and covered by the media in part because we were very lucky to have Olga Sánchez Cordero, a retired Supreme Court Justice, speak on the panel," says Erdman.

This month Erdman will host Professor Verónica Undurraga from the Faculty of Law, Adolfo Ibáñez University, Chile as a Health Law Institute Visiting Scholar. Prof. Undurraga is one of the contributing authors in the collection; her chapter explores the principle of proportionality in constitutional abortion law.