Dobbs v. Jackson women’s health: undermining public health, facilitating reproductive coercion
Date
2023-12-13
Authors
Ahmed, Aziza
Version
Published version
OA Version
Citation
Ahmed A, Evans DP, Jackson J, Meier BM, Tomori C. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health: Undermining Public Health, Facilitating Reproductive Coercion. Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics. 2023;51(3):485-489. doi:10.1017/jme.2023.137
Abstract
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health continues a trajectory of U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence that undermines the normative foundation of public health — the idea that the state is obligated to provide a robust set of supports for healthcare services and the underlying social determinants of health. Dobbs furthers a longstanding ideology of individual responsibility in public health, neglecting collective responsibility for better health outcomes. Such an ideology on individual responsibility not only enables a shrinking of public health infrastructure for reproductive health, it facilitates the rise of reproductive coercion and a criminal legal response to pregnancy and abortion. This commentary situates Dobbs in the context of a long historical shift in public health that increasingly places burdens on individuals for their own reproductive health care, moving away from the possibility of a robust state public health infrastructure.
Description
License
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited. This article has been published under a Read & Publish Transformative Open Access (OA) Agreement with CUP.