The Sweeping Consequences of Abortion Restrictions on Sexual and Reproductive Health

The Sweeping Consequences of Abortion Restrictions on Sexual and Reproductive Health

  “There is more at stake than just protecting a woman’s choice to give birth.” Former First Lady Michelle Obama spoke of this reality during a Michigan campaign event for Vice President Kamala Harris on October 26th.1   This November marks the first presidential election since the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the revocation of a once-established national right to abortion, an essential healthcare service. The resulting hostile restrictions on abortion and their devastating health impacts have propelled the issue to its current political salience.   Restrictions on abortion care are associated with increased maternal morbidity and mortality, with these burdens disproportionately harming Black birthing people.2 Further, a recent JAMA cohort study illustrated the detrimental impact of abortion bans on infant mortality, with researchers identifying an excess of infant deaths in Texas associated with the state’s 2021 abortion ban.3 These restrictions will also exacerbate inequalities and health systems barriers that prevent low-income patients, who are more likely to report an unintended pregnancy, from accessing...
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Tori Bowie: Don’t ever stop saying her name.

Tori Bowie: Don’t ever stop saying her name.

*trigger warning: mention of death   Say her name. Frentorish “Tori” Bowie.  Dr. Shalon Irving.  Tatia Oden French.  Kira Dixon Johnson.  Yolanda “Shiphrah” Kadima.  Amber Rose Isaac. The list could continue extensively.   I lead with these women’s names because sometimes they get lost in the horrific statistics that that show a Black women is almost 3 times more likely to die from pregnancy or childbirth related causes than a non-Hispanic white women (Craft-Blacksheare & Kahn, 2023). The maternal mortality rate for Black women in 2021 was 69.9 deaths per 100,000 live births (Hoyert, 2023) with 393 deaths in 2019 alone (Fleszar et al., 2023), and most of these maternal deaths were deemed preventable (Fleszar et al., 2023). Further, Black newborns are over two times greater to die in their first year than white newborns. The role of racism in these preventable deaths is highlighted in the fact that the mortality rate of infants of college-educated African American mothers experience an infant mortality rate that is greater than those of white...
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REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS AS HUMAN RIGHTS ACROSS A POST-ROE NATION

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS AS HUMAN RIGHTS ACROSS A POST-ROE NATION

Pro-choice vs Pro-life? The conversation surrounding reproductive health has been trampled by the debate between two movements. It has been obscured by debates of when life begins. It has been convoluted with religious beliefs, political beliefs, and complex obscurities that the people have failed to realize the real focus of this discussion: women and their reproductive freedom. With the overturning of Roe vs Wade, the discussion of reproductive rights and women’s rights have become more urgent than ever. This is not a matter of women’s rights but human rights. Due to the constitutional right to an abortion granted by Roe vs Wade, women have had the law the federal government enabling the freedom to reproductive care but stripping this basic human right to healthcare puts them in more dangerous situations than ever [2]. The advent of this new decision has opened new laws that will soon ban abortion access, birth control and other means of contraceptives. This is a mean...
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The Failures of American Sex-Education

The Failures of American Sex-Education

As the topic of sexual and reproductive health re-enters the public consciousness in America through the overturning of Roe v. Wade, it becomes increasingly important to access American Sex Education, or rather, the failures of it, and how we teach these topics to our most impressionable population, children. The state of sex-education in this country is in shambles. Though the majority of Americans support sex-education in middle school and in high school, what exactly does that education look like?  The first and one of the most important things to note about sex-education in the states is that there is no universal regulation of it. Only thirty nine states, plus DC, even have government mandated sex-education [5]. Within the states with mandated sex-education, only thirteen must provide “medically accurate” sex-education [1]. The content of what is covered in sex-education varies widely from state to state, within states that do have government mandated sex-education, it is often left to individual districts to decide...
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The Heart of the Abortion Debate

The Heart of the Abortion Debate

When having discussions about Roe v. Wade and the consequences of overturning it, it is of the utmost importance that we remember to center the stories and the voices of those that would be most affected by the loss of abortion access. It is often easy to get lost in the big-picture, Constitutional implications of Roe v. Wade being overturned, but the heart of this issue is the people. Some of our most vulnerable and most marginalized populations will feel the impact of Roe being overturned the most, and listening to them and understanding their stories is imperative to movements to preserve abortion access. Through this blogpost, I hope to highlight the stories of real people that need access to abortion services.    Adriana was 34 and living in Mexico when she found out that she was pregnant. Abortion was not legal where Adriana was from in Mexico. Adriana knew immediately that she wanted to terminate her pregnancy, but her choices were...
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Maternal Mortality: Why is Race a Factor?

Maternal Mortality: Why is Race a Factor?

The United States is one of the leading nations in medical advancement and spends a significant portion of expenditures in healthcare and yet, we have the highest rate of maternal mortality (ratio of 57) among developed countries. About 57 mothers die during childbirth per 100,000 birth in a year. Maternal mortality is defined as the death of a mother due to pregnancy and/or childbirth complications [3]. These complications can arise due to a variety of factors including environmental lifestyle, predisposing conditions, risk factors, genetics and socioeconomic factors [1]. Pregnancy complications are likely to arise in women with higher maternal age and those with chronic cardiovascular conditions. Preeclampsia is a condition in which women develop high blood pressure due to preexisting cardiovascular conditions and kidney disease. Black non-Hispanic mothers are 2.5 times more likely to die from pregnancy or labor complications compared to white women and 3.5 times more likely to die than Hispanic women [3]. Why is there a disparity in...
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Faculty Spotlight:  An Interview with Dr. Jonas Swartz

Faculty Spotlight: An Interview with Dr. Jonas Swartz

Jonas Swartz, MD, MPH is an OB/GYN and an Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology. He completed his undergrad at Duke University and then his MPH and MD at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He completed his residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Oregon Health and Science University, followed with a fellowship in Complex Family Planning back at UNC. I had a conversation with Dr. Swartz to understand more about how he became involved in health policy and reproductive health access. “Well, I grew up in North Carolina and did Medical School here, and one of the striking things when I was a medical student was the discrepancy in care during pregnancy for people who were citizens versus non-citizens. And, in particular, thinking about low-income people who use Medicaid.” Swartz described his early medical training and becoming acquainted with the Federal Emergency Medicaid program, which only pays for labor and delivery services for authorized immigrants. He noted that...
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Comfort Women?

Every Wednesday in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, people gather around to demand the Japanese government formally apologize for their forced sexual slavery system during World War II. Even though it has been over 20 years of Koreans raising this issue, the Japanese government has only tried to offer monetary compensation, and has not issued an official apology. The Asian Women’s Fund estimates the number of victims ranges from 50,000 to a quarter million, but the number has remained vague due to incomplete data archives and stigma among victims after the war (1). A few survivors of this sexual slavery system have spoken in front of global leaders to raise awareness: one of them, Hak-sun Kim, delivered her first testimony in 1991. During this testimony, Kim said that when she was seventeen, she was forcibly sent to the Japanese military’s comfort station (a sexual slavery station) in China (2). She resisted, but soldiers threatened and kicked her to be...
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How did COVID-19 influence telehealth abortion?

COVID-19 impacted our lives a lot. Working from home became common sense, losing a dear family member and making hospital appointments became incredibly difficult. In Sexual Reproductive Health, Marie Stopes International (MSI) expected that up to 9.5 million females would lose access to contraception and safe abortion services due to COVID. It could lead to 2.7 million unsafe abortions and more than 10,000 pregnancy-related deaths [1]. Inspired by the guest lecture of Kelly Hunter, a DGHI Doctoral Scholar and PhD candidate in Political Science, about her research on the impact of the Global Gag Rule and COVID-19 on women’s sexual and reproductive health in Kenya [2], I want to look at how COVID-19 and development of telemedicine impacted sexual and reproductive health in high-income countries, such as the United States and Great Britain. By its WHO definition, telemedicine utilises internet and communication technology (ICT) in healthcare practice [3]. A wide array of information collected through various technologies helps decrease the cost...
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The Implications of the Newest Wave of Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis and Testing on Global Inequality

In 1997, the film Gattaca was released and while it was not a commercial success, it did raise questions about the future of genetic technology. The movie predicted a dystopian future in which eugenics dictate the futures of humankind – those who are genetically “superior” rule over those who have less desirable genetic traits. In the movie this is done through a procedure where parents pick their embryos based on their genes prior to implantation (Maslin).  In reality, Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis and Testing (PGD/T) has been around for almost 40 years. It involves the testing of genetic material from the blastula of a developing embryo that is external to the body (to be later implanted using embryo transfer). It is an extra step during the process of In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF), which begins with egg retrieval and sperm retrieval from both parents, and then fertilization occurs external to the womb to create an embryo. After the embryo reaches a certain size, a small number of cells are...
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