Citation

Hill M, Houghton F, Keogh Hoss MA. J. R. Soc. Med. 2023; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, Royal Society of Medicine)

DOI

10.1177/01410768231193308

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

On 4 June 2022, the US Supreme Court overruled both Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey and returned the legality of abortion to the States.1 A significant number of States subsequently banned abortion, with 13 States having even prepared so-called trigger laws in advance, ready to be enacted if the challenge was successful. This ruling is a direct assault upon the rights and bodily autonomy of women, as well as gender and health equity more broadly. In some States, this ruling does not even include exemptions for rape or incest. However, even where laws might make abortions permissible, actually finding a health provider still offering such services can be problematic.2 Given the severe penalties involved, this ruling means that in many States life-threatening pregnancy complications will now inevitably result in unnecessary deaths of pregnant women. It is also important to note that as the American Medical Association have noted ‘States that end legal abortion will not end abortion—they will end safe abortion’.

The wider implications of the Supreme Court decision may yet have implications for access to contraception, end-of-life care, care for LGBTQ patients and in-vitro fertilisation.1
It must be acknowledged that US healthcare was broken long before these latest assaults. Maternal mortality rates in the US have been an outlier among industrialised nations for decades. US maternal and infant mortality rates are far nearer to those of significantly poorer nations than industrialised countries ...

Language: en