We recently passed the four-year anniversary of Samuel Alito’s contrived and dishonest Dobbs decision, overruling Roe v. Wade and telling state lawmakers that they could make reproductive decisions for the women who resided within their borders.
As I have repeatedly pointed out, the issue is not whether a given woman should or should not terminate a pregnancy–the issue, properly defined, is: who has the right to make that decision, the individual woman or the government?The Dobbs decision took that decision-making authority from women and gave it to government.
So–four years later, how’s that working out? The Contrarian recently took stock.
In the wake of the decision, 41 states have restricted abortion to a greater or lesser extent. That includes 13 states like Indiana, that impose total bans. As the essay notes, these restrictions have not substantially reduced the number of abortions because, although difficult, women still have access to medication abortions–a situation that accounts for the current relentless attacks on mifepristone.
However, access to medication abortion–while it lasts–can’t obscure the amount of real damage that Dobbs has done.
As the Contrarian reports, women who require in-person abortion care face increased travel costs and delays, while government “surveillance of pregnancy outcomes and outright criminalization for miscarriages and stillbirths, long a reality for women of color in this country, are also escalating.” Prosecutors in anti-abortion states are intimidating people “by leveraging unrelated statutes for child endangerment, homicide, or abuse of a corpse.” Women with non-viable pregnancies are forced to wait to receive care, as their health deteriorates, because medical professionals fear that their judgment will be second guessed.
A number of women experiencing pregnancy emergencies have died. While statistics are difficult to come by, an earlier attempt by researchers from Johns Hopkins and UCLA suggested that 68 women had died between the time of the Dobbs decision and the end of 2023. (I guess being “pro life” doesn’t extend to women’s lives…)
There have also been other, presumably unanticipated consequences for states like Indiana. Abortion bans have made it much more difficult for businesses to recruit workers, for example–many women (and men) in families of child-bearing age are unwilling to risk the consequences of possible emergencies. Former colleagues at the university tell me that fewer young women are applying to universities in states with bans.
The linked article focused on what it called another “under-reported outcome” of Dobbs–the growing number of individuals and families losing access to all healthcare thanks to a rise in medical deserts.
Medical deserts, defined as areas with insufficient supply to meet demand, can be caused by hospitals shuttering; a shortage of doctors and other health professionals, leading to appointment wait times that are prohibitively long; or too few pharmacies. In abortion-ban states, deserts are also produced by a climate of fear, as reported by TIME Magazine: “Doctors, nurses, and pharmacists fear they will be arrested, jailed, fined, or lose their licenses for providing care, and patients fear getting in trouble and hesitating to share everything with doctors.”
States with the most restrictive abortion laws, like Indiana, are most acutely affected by these shortages.
According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, 42 percent of surveyed clinicians who provide abortions in states with near-total or six-week bans relocated to another state, nearly all of whom went to states with no ban; just 9 percent of those who practiced in a state that allowed abortion relocated. That’s just common sense. There is no reason for highly mobile professionals to remain in places where they find themselves, increasingly, facing the prospect of personal risk for practicing medicine….
Over 5 million women now live in U.S. counties with limited or zero access to maternity resources such as hospitals, birthing centers, or obstetric care….Women in maternity deserts have an increased risk of preterm birth.
As the Contrarian notes, the impact of Dobbs on America’s terrible maternal and infant mortality rates can hardly be overstated. We have the highest maternal mortality rate of any wealthy country, and while rates worldwide are dropping, they’re climbing here. (America’s racism comes into play as well, with Black women more than three times more likely than white women to die in childbirth.) And in states that enacted abortion restrictions since 2022, infant mortality has climbed–again with impacts worse among Black infants.
Dobbs is part and parcel of the Christian nationalist backlash against personal autonomy–especially for women. It’s part of a movement toward autocracy–supported by our corrupt Supreme Court– that gives government ever-increasing control over the individual.
That control was what the Bill of Rights was expressly passed to prevent.
No MAN alone should ever be in a place of deciding whether or not a woman should receive and abortion. And certainly not a man whose role is a government lawmaker. If the woman is a married woman, then her husband should be involved in the decision, and TOGETHER they should make a decision based on the advice of the woman’s doctor.
Sam Alito and his fetid colleagues on SCOTUS are all children of the Federalist Society funded by right wing extremists. Their hypocrisy of, on the one hand, keeping government to a minimum and forcing their ideologies into the law of the land, on the other hand, is reflective of the intellectual paucity that these Republican-appointed “justices” possess.
Rick Wilson’s meme about everything Republicans touch dies doesn’t quite reach this far on this particular subject – ironies notwithstanding. But cockeyed religion coupled with greedy sponsorship and egocentric ideology are part and parcel of the Republican party – and has been for decades.
Sadly, tragically, the assault on women’s rights will remain part of the right-wing agenda as long as these wrong-headed people are allowed power over others. To them, it seems, the Constitution and the spirit of the rule of law are just quaint notions.
Sheila writes: “…medical professionals fear that their judgment will be second guessed.”
The obstetrician I worked with in Indiana moved to Illinois, but only after she kicked ass first. She was from Southern Indiana, in Asthma Alley. She wrote a paper linking mercury to premature infant deaths. She was blackballed among her “peers.” She would travel to Indy to speak about our high infant mortality rate, but as soon as she mentioned “pollution,” they cut off her mic. She left her group and moved to Illinois.
Dobbs should have been a no-brainer for SCOTUS, but they’ve 100% sold out long ago, especially Clarence Thomas. What they’ve done for Trump should have resulted in their disbarment.
The more I hear about Clarence Thomas meeting with the Speaker of the House, the more nervous I get.
Such a futile attempt by the far right Christian Nationalists to take the country back to the 1950s. The world, and all of the women in it have moved on. Stuck in a nostalgia for a time when even the lowest male was better than any woman, their attempts to return to that bygone age have only destroyed their own families and have ripped the country they claim to love apart. We will emerge from this mess created by MAGA, and a new form of our country will emerge that will firmly cement into place the freedom and liberty of women.
SCOTUS has been working steadily to establish a kingdom here and to turn more power over to the least qualified person ever to hold the office of the President. Precedent be damned! Rule of law is whatever the six deem it to be. All six should be disbarred and Impeached!
Todd, after the Speaker’s speech, the other day, we should all be nervous
THINK,
VOTE!!!!
Kudos vernon!
Todd- Pollution, what pollution? It’s like the old cartoon from an earlier era, wherein two lawmakers are coming down the capitol steps bemoaning those who
claim that acid rain is a real thing. As they are coming down the steps, statues on the side thereof are melting in the acid rain.
The Catholic church, at least, has long been focused on success at any momentary cost, viewing their definition of success in generational terms. Thus, “Causing death and suffering now is not important, compared to the control we will have, in the name of our LOVING God, later.”
If commenters haven’t seen “Suffs” on PBS Great Performances, take the time to do it. There is a line in the dialogue between two characters that struck me particularly hard. In light of today’s blog, it bears repeating.
The two are discussing getting married in a song titled, “If We Were Married”. Remember, the time frame is 1916.
She responds to her partner’s promises of love and devotion with the following:
“When we are married, I’ll love you, although it will render me legally dead.”
The relentless drive by the WCN to disenfranchise women means returning to a time when women have no voice in how they are governed, as good as legally dead. The Roe decision has made it more likely for women of childbearing years to actually BE dead.
The loss of hospitals, medical professionals, the criminalization of not only the patients but the medical staff all mean that women, especially black women, are at higher risk for death than they have been for decades.
In an age when women are 55% of the enrollees in U.S. medical schools, what will the future hold for them as they enter practices? Where will they live and work if there are no hospitals or clinics? How will they be able to afford malpractice insurance when the risks of criminal charges for standard procedures is so high?
Indiana has 35 out of 92 counties without a birthing hospital.
If I were advising any young woman living in Indiana now, I would urge her to leave for a place where her healthcare provider is at least likely to be close to a birthing hospital.
Alice Paul, Inez Milholland and Ida B. Wells fought, sometimes to the death, for the rights too many women on the right seem so willing to surrender.
RESIST with everything we got!
VOTE.
AH! The delights of the Law of Unintended Consequences!
The Dodd decision sent the regulation of abortion back to the states. Thus, 13 states have essentially outlawed abortion, but 37 still have some access to the procedure.
Essential consequence: women who have the means can leave the 13 and go to another state to get the procedure done. And, generalization here, the women with the means are majority white.
Hence, the forced births being generated by the decision are predominantly to women of “color.” Not what the white christian nationalists had in mind!
JD: Suffs is a great musical. I second your motion that everybody should watch it.
Women need laws to establish that they are not secondary citizens. ERA would help establish that right to make decisions for themselves. Women need more protection from the controlling totalitarianism in the laws applying to women. From birth that system demands you follow their guidelines in life; problem is you end up having to make decisions against your own wellbeing to stay with their mind control. That controlling system goes way back and many women have suffered greatly especially those who have been faithful to it and lived accordingly. A lot of women had so many babies that their health was greatly damaged; the care and responsibility of so many babies/children can be/was too much.
Women’s inherent rights are being dragged through the mud by control minded public officials who have no right to interfere in the personal lives and health of women.
The medical desert phenomenon is truly concerning. Who benefits? Without a doubt, Canada. Here are the data for my province, British Columbia: The numbers from B.C.’s Ministry of Health show 89 physicians, 42 nurse practitioners, 260 nurses and 23 allied health professionals from the U.S. accepted jobs in the province between March 2025 and January 2026.
Wow! Talk about confirmation that Dobbs is harming Americans access to medical care!
Berger, One of those physicians may have been my former one.