Repercussions of overturning Roe v. Wade for women across systems and beyond borders

Abstract

June 24th, 2022, a day that will be etched in today and future generations’ textbooks as a historic day, the United States of America revoked the constitutional right to seek safe abortion care. Overturning Roe v Wade allowed the divided individual states to independently decide the legal parameters regarding abortion care. A decision that disproportionately effects the reproductive lives of women residing on the land of America. Given the systemic impacts of racism, neoliberalism and white supremacy, it is the Black, racialized and poor women who suffer terrible repercussions. In this commentary the authors begin by discussing the historical biopolitical perspective, colonial systems and longstanding impacts on racialized women’s bodies in America. The discussion transitions to the implications of geopolitics at play nationally and cascading impacts globally, focusing on humanitarian and emergency settings. Using a medical humanities perspective, authors highlight the collision between politics and reproductive health policy and its implications on social determinants of health, such as women’s education, employment, housing, racial and gender equity and wellbeing. Long standing advocates, community leaders and healers, leading scientists, birth attendants, doctors, nurses, allied health professionals/providers and humanitarian workers – and many others - are reminded and live the weight of the continuous battle of population control, stemming from the oppressive history of control and exploitation.

The Relationship Between Access to Abortion and Mental Health in Women of Childbearing Age: Analyses of Data From the Global Burden of Disease Studies

“…More specifically, this study was carried out to assess whether access to abortion has a broader effect on women of childbearing age, over and above its immediate effects on women seeking an abortion for various indications (Figure 1). This question is of importance when considering the possible societal impact of changes in abortion legislation, whether these are in the direction of greater restriction [1][2][3][4] or of broader access [10][11].…”

“…On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States of America issued its judgment on the case Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization, reversing the decision issued in the case Roe vs. Wade (1973) which guaranteed legal access to abortion at the federal level [1]. The consequences of this decision extend far beyond the boundaries of abortion access, both in the United States and at the international level [2][3][4]. As a result, broader questions on the individual and societal consequences of changes in the legality of abortion have come into focus.…”

“…A limitation of much of this literature is its focus on the unique situation observed in the United States, where abortion is an emotionally and politically charged issue [2,30]. The availability of global or crossnational data on the links between abortion and mental health, even if provisional in nature, would provide a broader context for both this literature and the discourse surrounding it, and would be of use to both the general public and to experts, particularly in settings whose socioeconomic realities differ widely from those of the United States or Western Europe [31][32][33].…”

The Medical and Financial Burden of Illegal Abortion

“…The compounding economic costs of banning abortion are then something that must be taken into consideration, for they are significant. Hospitals used to have wards dedicated exclusively to the treatment of illegal abortions; these wards, alongside the enormous number of medical and surgical complications and noted emotional traumas associated with illegal abortion and its complications, all disappeared after the installment of Roe vs. Wade [5,6]. The mean total cost per patient with abortion or post-abortion care ranged from 23 USD to 564 USD.…”

The need for more research into reproductive health and disease

“…Moreover, a long-standing lack of research into reproductive health and disease means that the acute and chronic healthcare burden caused by reproductive pathologies is likely to continue increasing. This lack of research likely results from historic and ongoing systemic biases against female-focused research, and from political and legal challenges to female reproductive health ( Coen-Sanchez et al, 2022 ). In this exploratory analysis we seek to understand the “research gap” between reproductive health and disease and other areas of medical research, and to suggest ways of closing this gap.…”