b'8th Annual Frances Tarlton Sissy Farenthold Endowed Lecture in Peace, Social Justice and Human Rights with Dorothy RobertsCo-presented by the Rothko Chapel & The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice at University of Texas at Austin School of Law, the eighth annual Farenthold Lecture engaged acclaimed scholar and activist, University of Pennsylvania law and sociology professor Dorothy Roberts. Roberts lecture The Long Struggle to Abolish Reproductive Slavery traced Black womens struggle for reproductive rights from a 1662 Virginia law determining that children born to enslaved mothers held the racial and legal status of their mothers, to the family separation by state child welfare systems today. During her talk inside the Chapel, Roberts noted how she felt liberated to speak from her faith on this topic, something that is discouraged in more academic settings.She argued that the Supreme Courts 2022 Dobbs decision was part of this racialized history of legally coerced childbirth and economically coerced family separation. Quoting Malcolm Xs proclamation that I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight, Roberts called for the abolition of contemporary reproductive slavery. She insisted on the urgency of building a society that meets human needs without policing pregnancy and families. After the lecture, Roberts engaged in lively conversation with Eleanor Klibanoff, womens health reporter at the Texas Tribune, including discussion of the implications of Roberts work for Texas. The evening concluded with a book signing of Roberts Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Familiesand How Abolition Can Build a Safer World (2022).Named in honor of Sissy Farenthold (1926-2021), who dedicated her life to exposing and responding to injustices as a lawyer, legislator, and global leader in human rights, this lecture series aims to inspire audiences to think and act creatively in response to the greatest human rights challenges of the 21st century.7'