Side Effects of the Abortion Wars

Abstract

This essay challenges the false assumption that abortion care can be segregated from women’s medical care and targeted for special restrictions without any ripple effects on women’s health more broadly. In fact, existing abortion restrictions harm women’s health even for women not actively seeking abortion care, but these effects remain obscured. This essay unmasks the ripple effects of abortion restrictions that, perhaps unintentionally, impede the provision of basic health care other than abortion. Focusing the public’s attention on the broader effects of abortion restrictions on women’s health could help make visible the links between abortion and health care. Uncovering these links could also create stronger support for access to abortion and thereby better promote full health care access for women. Repositioning the law to recognize access to abortion care as integral to women’s medical needs remains critical for protecting women’s health.

Keywords: health law, reproductive rights, women's health, abortion, pregnancy, sex equality