The Upended Politics of Abortion in the United States: New Directions for Health Policy Research.

Abstract

The 2022 Supreme Court decision in Dobbs rescinded the federal right to abortion in the United States, paving the way for an unprecedented wave of new state policies to restrict or criminalize, or, conversely, protect or create new state rights to abortion care. This transformed legal understanding has upended the politics of abortion in the US, raising the question for policy and politics researchers of how to move forward in an increasingly authoritarian era. In this reflective essay, I begin with an overview of the Reproductive Justice framework, suggesting it as a new norm for reproductive health policy research. I briefly review and summarize pre-Dobbs research on state policies related to Reproductive Justice constructs - the right to be pregnant, to not be pregnant, and to parent in a supportive environment. Building on the foundation of this prior research, I discuss the role of federalism in abortion policy going forward and propose a framework for future research. I conclude that reproductive health policy research should include the study of the interaction of policies and systems to wholistically consider the role of abortion policy in shaping health and social outcomes.