The Upended Politics of Abortion in the United States: New Directions for Health Policy Research

The 2022 US Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization rescinded the federal right to abortion in the United States, paving the way for an unprecedented wave of new state policies for restricting or criminalizing abortion care-or, conversely, for protecting or creating new state rights to abortion care. This transformed legal understanding has upended the politics of abortion in the United States, raising the question for policy and politics researchers of how to move forward in an increasingly authoritarian era. In this reflective article, the author begins with an overview of the reproductive justice framework, suggesting it as a new norm for reproductive health policy research. The author briefly reviews and summarizes pre-Dobbs research on state policies related to reproductive justice constructs: the right to be pregnant, the right to not be pregnant, and the right to parent in a supportive environment. Building on the foundation of this earlier research, the author discusses the role of federalism in abortion policy going forward and proposes a framework for future research. The author concludes that reproductive health policy research should include the study of the interaction of policies and systems to holistically consider the role of abortion policy in shaping health and social outcomes.