Browsing by Subject "abortion"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Abortion and Compelled Physician Speech
    (Wiley, 2015) Orentlicher, David; Robert H. McKinney School of Law
    As states increasingly impose informed consent mandates on abortion providers, the required disclosures bring two well-established legal doctrines into conflict — the First Amendment’s freedom of speech and the physician’s duty to obtain informed consent. On one hand, the First Amendment precludes the government from forcing individuals to voice the government’s views. On the other hand, legislatures and courts can insist that physicians properly explain to patients about their medical conditions and potential treatments so patients can make informed decisions about their health care. When taking care of patients, doctors assume a duty to speak, as well as a duty to speak responsibly. Ordinarily, the doctrines of free speech and informed consent coexist without much difficulty. But as states have expanded the kinds of information that abortion providers must disclose to pregnant women, First Amendment concerns have become increasingly salient. In this article, I will use several examples of speech mandates for abortion and other health care services to identify principles for distinguishing between legitimate regulation of the informed consent process and illegitimate interference with the freedom of speech. First, speech mandates should be permissible when they provide material information to patients about their health care decisions. If the state is trying to ensure that patients are fully informed, the mandates should be allowed. As a corollary, the information must be truthful and not be misleading. The goal is to inform not to misinform. Second, speech mandates that pertain to moral considerations should not be permitted. Rather than informing the patient’s decision, these mandates force the physician or other health professional to espouse the state’s ideology. Courts and legal scholars have proposed other ways to distinguish permissible from impermissible mandates (e.g., whether the government takes sides, manipulates emotions, or uses graphic images). However, these additional distinctions raise their own concerns and should not be needed. If courts strictly apply the requirements that compelled speech pertain to medical facts about abortion and its alternatives rather than abortion ideology and that the compelled speech be truthful and not misleading, then the interests of pregnant women and their physicians should be protected.
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    Counting unreported abortions: A binomial-thinned zero-inflated Poisson model
    (2017-01) Tennekoon, Vidhura S.; Department of Economics, School of Liberal Arts
    Background: Self-reported counts of intentional abortions in demographic surveys are significantly lower than the actual counts. To estimate the extent of misreporting, previous research has required either a gold standard or a validation sample. However, in most cases, a gold standard or a validation sample is not available. Objective: Our main intention here is to show that a researcher has an alternative tool to estimate the extent of underreporting in a given dataset, particularly when neither a valid gold standard nor a validation sample is available. Methods: We adopt a binomial-thinned zero-inflated Poisson model and apply it to a sample dataset, the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), for which an alternative estimate of the average reporting rate (38%) is available. We show how this model could be used to estimate the reporting probabilities of intentional abortions by each individual in addition to the overall average reporting rate. Results: Our model estimates the average reporting rate in the NSFG during 2006‒2013 as 35.3% (SE 8.2%). Individual reporting probabilities vary significantly. Conclusions: Our estimate of the average reporting rate of the dataset used is qualitatively and statistically similar to the available alternative estimate.
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    Impact of the Dobbs Decision on Obstetrics and Gynecology Residency Applications – an Exploratory Survey
    (The European Society of Medicine, 2025-04-30) Conklin, Alissa M.; Rone, Victoria; Arrocha, Diana; Scott, Nicole P.; Peipert, Jeffrey F.; Shanks, Anthony L.
    Objective: To evaluate the early impact of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision on Obstetrics and Gynecology (OBGYN) residency applications by analyzing changes in applicant behavior, including application numbers and signal allocation, based on abortion law categories, program prestige, geographic region, and the availability of family planning fellowships. Study Design: This cross-sectional survey assessed 61 medium-to-large OBGYN residency programs to examine application trends before and after the Dobbs decision. Data were collected on residency applications for the 2021–2022 and 2022–2023 application cycles, the number of gold and silver signals received in the 2022 Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) cycle, program prestige (US News & World Report and Doximity rankings), geographic region (Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-defined), and the presence of a family planning fellowship or Ryan Program affiliation. Descriptive statistics, paired t-tests, and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to analyze differences in application numbers and signal allocation. Results: Across all abortion law categories, applications declined from the 2021–2022 to the 2022–2023 cycle (mean: 895.9 vs. 856.7, p = 0.02), with the largest decrease in states with abortion restrictions (-7.58%). Programs in states with abortion protections received significantly more gold (p = 0.04) and silver signals (p < 0.001) than those in restrictive states. Programs offering family planning fellowships and those affiliated with the Ryan Program also received more signals (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Programs in abortion-restrictive states received fewer applications and signals, suggesting applicants prioritize abortion training access. These trends may impact the geographic distribution of OBGYNs and reproductive healthcare availability. Implications: Declining applications to restrictive states may exacerbate maternity care shortages. Further research is needed to assess long-term effects on workforce retention and training.
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    IVF and the Anti-Abortion Movement: Considerations for Advocacy Against Overturning Roe v. Wade
    (IU School of Social Work, 2019) Boys, Stephanie K.; Harris, Evan M.; School of Social Work
    As the anti-abortion movement gains ground in the United States, it is important to explore the potential impact of overturning Roe v. Wade (1973) on the practice of IVF (in vitro fertilization). If the United States Supreme Court abandoned the legal right to early pregnancy terminations, it would open the door for states to enforce laws defining life to begin at conception. In all likelihood, legally establishing life to begin at conception may make IVF far less likely to be successful, significantly more expensive, more likely to result in high risk pregnancies with multiples, and more medically invasive. As the prevalence of IVF grows, this is a practice that should no longer be ignored in the political discourse on abortion. Instead, the unintended consequences of life at conception bills on the cost, availability, safety, and success rates of IVF can provide a strong argument in the toolbox of strategies for social workers lobbying against anti-abortion legislation.
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    Truth and Transparency in Crisis Pregnancy Centers
    (Women's Health Reports, 2020-07-27) Polcyn, Carly; Swiezy, Sarah; Genn, Leah; Wickramage, Pavithra; Siddiqui, Neha; Johnson, Candice; Nair, Pooja; Bernard, Caitlin; Miller, Velvet
    The prevalence of crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs), their false claims, and the real harm they cause necessitate public education about their unethical practices. Also called ‘‘pregnancy resource centers’’ and ‘‘pregnancy sup- port centers,’’ CPCs are nonmedical institutions designed to deceive women seeking comprehensive pregnancy care, as their volunteers are instructed to pedal misinformation about reproductive health care.
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    ‘You can’t repeal regret’: targeting men for mobilisation in Ireland’s abortion debate
    (Bristol University Press, 2021-02) Hunt, Kate; Friesen, Amanda; Political Science, School of Liberal Arts
    This study explores how social movement organisations involved in the abortion debate in the Republic of Ireland attempted to appeal to men in their campaign messages before the 2018 referendum on the Eighth Amendment concerning abortion. We scrape social movement organisations’ Twitter accounts to conduct quantitative and qualitative content analyses of images and videos the organisations posted, and find evidence that social movement organisations sometimes extended their frames to men as voters. Social movement organisations evoked themes of hegemonic masculinity in their imagery and messaging, though these themes were not a large portion of overall campaign tweets and there were distinct differences in how this was done by the two organisations we study. Previous research suggests anti-abortion organisations extend their frames to incorporate ‘pro-woman’ messaging. Our research contributes by exploring the ways that frames may be extended by both anti- and pro-abortion actors to target men and mobilise masculinity in public debates over women’s rights.