Abortion is healthcare: In what sense?

Abstract

In the wake of Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization, many nursing organizations asserted that "abortion is health care" and access to it must be protected. Such a phrase makes clear claims about the meanings of "health" and "care." How one defines these terms gives decisive direction to how a nurse must practice regarding not just elective abortion but also myriad interventions that divide bioethicists, including gender affirmative care, cosmetic surgery, and euthanasia. We consider the issue of elective abortion to illustrate the nature of disputes about the scope and limits of professional nursing. We describe two competing intuitions about the nature of health care namely that health care is either for (a) health, objectively defined or (b) well-being, patient defined. We discuss how these intuitions lead to different understandings of the intelligibility of the phrase "abortion is health care" and the implications for ethical discourse within professional nursing.