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In the United States, the \"right to choose\" an abortion is the law of the land. But what if a woman continues her pregnancy because she didn't really have a choice? What if state laws, federal policies, stigma, and a host of other obstacles push that choice out of her reach?     Based on candid, in-depth interviews with women who considered but did not obtain an abortion, No Real Choice punctures the myth that American women have full autonomy over their reproductive choices. Focusing on the experiences of a predominantly Black and low-income group of women, sociologist Katrina Kimport finds that structural, cultural, and experiential factors can make choosing abortion impossible-especially for those who experience racism and class discrimination. From these conversations, we see the obstacles to \"choice\" these women face, such as bans on public insurance coverage of abortion and rampant antiabortion claims that abortion is harmful. Kimport's interviews reveal that even as activists fight to preserve Roe v. Wade, class and racial disparities have already curtailed many women's freedom of choice.   No Real Choice analyzes both the structural obstacles to abortion and the cultural ideologies that try to persuade women not to choose abortion. Told with care and sensitivity, No Real Choice gives voice to women whose experiences are often overlooked in debates on abortion, illustrating how real reproductive choice is denied, for whom, and at what cost. 

ObjectivesTo determine trends for Georgia and contiguous state residents seeking abortions in Georgia between 1994 and 2016.MethodsWe analyzed aggregate vital statistics data, collected in Georgia, on Georgia residents (n = 675,995) and contiguous state residents (Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee) (n = 76,232) obtaining abortion and delivery services in Georgia between 1994 and 2016. We examined demographic, pregnancy, and abortion characteristics using counts, ratios, and χ2 tests of proportion.ResultsOf the data analyzed, 10.1% of all abortions were for contiguous state residents. The number of abortions in Georgia for contiguous state residents increased 35.3% from 1994 to 2016 (from n = 3115 to n = 4216) while it decreased for Georgia residents by 11.1% (from n = 32,934 to n = 29,264). Contiguous state residents exhibited a higher abortion ratio (1115) compared to Georgia women (224). These populations exhibited statistically significant differences across all variables and time points. Both populations demonstrated similar trends in ethnicity, race, education, marital status, and age. However, contiguous state residents were more likely to obtain an abortion at ≥ 20 weeks gestational age (13.8%) and obtained a lower proportion of suction curettage abortions (60.0%) and a higher proportion of dilation and evacuation procedures (31.9%). They were also less likely to be primigravid.Conclusions for PracticeWomen from neighboring states seek abortions in Georgia later in gestation and may therefore lack affordable, safe, early abortion care in their home states. Understanding trends in travel for abortion can allow providers and policymakers to better respond to the needs of patients.

The Department of Defense encourages service members ≤26 years of age to receive the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. Although this vaccine is not recommended in pregnancy, inadvertent vaccination may occur. The objective of this study was to assess whether active duty US military women who received the quadrivalent HPV vaccine (4vHPV) during pregnancy were at increased risk for adverse maternal or infant outcomes. The study population included active duty US military women aged 17–28 years with at least one pregnancy between 2007 and 2014, and the infants resulting from those pregnancies. Pregnancies, live births, and outcomes were identified using medical codes in administrative medical records. Exposure to 4vHPV during pregnancy was ascertained from personnel immunization records. Multivariable regression models were used to calculate risk estimates and 95% confidence intervals for the maternal outcomes of spontaneous abortion, preeclampsia/eclampsia and preterm labor, and the infant outcomes of preterm birth, birth defects, growth problems in infancy or in utero, and infant sex. Overall, 90,600 pregnancies and 75,670 singleton infants were identified. Approximately 2% of pregnancies and infants were exposed to 4vHPV during pregnancy. After adjustments, no positive associations were detected between inadvertent exposure to 4vHPV during pregnancy and any adverse pregnancy or infant outcomes. Our findings add to an established body of literature demonstrating the safety of 4vHPV when inadvertently administered during pregnancy. Although 4vHPV is no longer administered in the US, its use continues overseas; therefore, safety studies remain important. Furthermore, such studies can provide reassurance to women inadvertently exposed to nonavalent HPV vaccine (9vHPV) in pregnancy, which protects against four of the same antigens as 4vHPV, since safety of 9vHPV has not yet been established in pregnant women.

The end of the constitutional right to abortion with Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health stands to generate massive conflict between abortion regulation and the First Amendment. Abortion exceptionalism within constitutional doctrine -- which both treats abortion differently than other areas and favors anti-abortion over pro-choice viewpoints -- will not retreat but advance, unless confronted by the courts.

In this paper, I will examine the Supreme Court of the United States’ (SCOTUS) arguments in the majority decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, and I will show how some of those arguments are flawed. Primarily, I will show that the right to bodily autonomy is a well-established right, both in the courts and in societal practices, and that the right to an abortion should be understood as an example of the right to bodily autonomy or bodily integrity. Second, I will examine the justices’ arguments that viability is not a reasonable place to restrict abortion access, in contrast to both Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey , and will offer arguments that defend viability as a valid point to limit abortion access. Third, I will highlight some politicians’ goals to enact a federal ban on abortion, and show how the attempt to pass Personhood Amendments is a pathway for doing so. The upshot of this essay to is show how the SCOTUS decision is flawed, and how granting personhood to “potential life” has consequences that extend beyond abortion access.

In 2018, the US Supreme Court analyzed a California state requirement that clinics serving pregnant women must provide government notices—1 for licensed clinics about the availability of state health services including abortion and 1 for unlicensed clinics, notifying potential clients that the clinics are not licensed medical facilities and have no licensed medical professionals on-site. The Supreme Court found that both notices violated the First Amendment rights of the clinics. The Supreme Court’s opinion elicits new uncertainties about the government’s ability to require the disclosure of factual information in the context of reproductive health services and more broadly in the commercial context. However, the Supreme Court’s silence on 1 of the state’s purposes for the unlicensed clinic notice, which was to address deceptive speech by the clinics, highlights a potential avenue for future regulation. Policymakers can require the disclosure of factual information in the commercial context specifically to prevent consumer deception consistent with the First Amendment. Public health researchers can generate evidence to support such disclosure requirements intended to protect health and safety.

In June 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States overturned Roe v. Wade. The European Court of Human Rights is also expected to decide on several abortion cases. In this paper, the interpretative approaches of both courts are compared. Whereas the U.S. Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decided on an originalist approach to the Constitution, the highest European court has always regarded the European Convention on Human Rights as a living instrument. As a result, domestic laws regulating the interruption of pregnancy are seen by the Strasbourg court as interferences with a fundamental right, the right to respect for private life. Although member states of the Council of Europe enjoy a wide margin of appreciation with regard to the circumstances in which abortion will be permitted, its highest court put forward the state’s positive obligation to secure pregnant women’s right to effective respect for their physical and psychological integrity in several landmark judgments. In this way, it ensures the existence of effective mechanisms in countries with a poor record of implementing the right to a lawful abortion. Albeit at a minimum, the Strasbourg court offers protection, whereas the U.S. Supreme Court no longer does.

Concern about individual rights and the desire to protect them has been part of our nation since its founding, and continues to be so today. The Ninth Amendment was created to assuage the Framers' concerns that enumerating some rights in the Bill of Rights would leave unenumerated rights unrecognized and unprotected, affirming that those rights are not disparaged or denied by their lack of textual support. The Ninth Amendment has appeared infrequently in our jurisprudence, and Courts initially construed it rather narrowly. But starting in the 1960s, the Ninth Amendment emerged as a powerful tool not just for recognizing unanticipated rights, but for protecting or expanding even enumerated rights. The right to privacy--encompassing the right to contraception and abortion--the right to preserve the integrity of your family, the right to vote, the right to own a firearm as an individual--all these rights have been asserted under and found to be supported by the Ninth Amendment. In its Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health decision overturning Roe, the Supreme Court found that there is no right to abortion because it is not in the Constitution. But the potential of the Ninth Amendment is such that reproductive choice need not be mentioned in the Constitution to be protected. Reproductive choice may rightfully be considered as part of a right to privacy, an unenumerated right that nevertheless has abundant precedent behind it. The Ninth Amendment, and its counterparts found in many state constitutions, has the power to protect not just reproductive choice, but all of our fundamental rights.

This book presents a new argument attacking the view that if the foetus has the moral standing of a person it has a right to life and abortion is impermissible. Most discussion of abortion has assumed that this premise is correct, and so has focused on the question of the personhood of the foetus. Frances Kamm, however, argues that abortion can be moral even if the foetus is indeed a person.

Fostering global constitutional discourse has long been anathema to the conservative legal movement within the United States. In Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Services , which overturned Roe v Wade ’s right to an abortion, the court’s conservative justices relied on a globalized analysis. In this article, I identify three potential hypotheses to explain this deviation from conservative orthodoxy. Dobbs ’ conservative globalism could be explained by attitudinal preferences, legitimation concerns or the influence of illiberal legal networks. I compare the proceedings of Dobbs against Carson v Makin and Kennedy v Bremerton School District , the other significant Constitutional cases from the court’s 2021–22 term, to deal with religious issues. These two other cases did not feature global citations, despite such citations being able to advance the Justices’ policy preferences or blunt legitimation concerns. Lending credence to the illiberal network hypothesis, Alito’s Dobbs opinion was reliant on a unique amicus briefing by a global network of anti-abortion scholars advocating on behalf of the natural family. Such network campaigns were absent from the proceedings of Carson and Kennedy.