CLN Daily 2024
The Dobbs decision issued by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2022 overturned Roe v. Wade and, with it, nearly 50 years of federal abortion-access protections. Two years later, the political, legal, and real-life ramifications of this decision are still not fully understood. In this morning’s plenary session, titled “Projected Health and Social Consequences of Ending the Federal Protection for Abortion in the United States,” Diana Greene Foster, PhD, will present data on the causes and consequences of unintended pregnancy. She will describe how the Dobbs decision is impacting patients and discuss the role of the clinical laboratory in this environment.
Foster is a professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. She was awarded a 2023 MacArthur Fellowship in recognition of her important work to fill “a void in our understanding of how reproductive health policies impact an individual’s physical, mental, and socioeconomic well-being.” She is also the lead investigator of the Turnaway Study, a landmark prospective longitudinal study that compared the effects of unwanted pregnancy for women who received or were denied an abortion. Foster’s work provides crucial scientific evidence to inform an ongoing politically and emotionally charged discourse with profound implications for the lives of pregnant people.
In the 2007 decision of Gonzales v. Carhart, Chief Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that the choice to have an abortion could lead to “severe depression and loss of esteem,” while also acknowledging a lack of reliable data to support this assertion. In response, Foster and her team collected those very data. “Although I originally started this work to rigorously examine possible mental health harm from receiving abortions, I have found that there is greater physical, socioeconomic, and even mental health harm associated with denial [of abortions],” she said. “As health care professionals, it is important to understand the science and evidence.”
In addition to sharing information relevant for all healthcare professionals, Foster will also highlight direct impacts to the clinical laboratory. For example, how should laboratory professionals respond when they are asked to perform testing for abortion medications in regions where abortion is criminalized?
This plenary promises to be a compelling examination of the current state of abortion access and its broader implications on patients and the field of laboratory medicine. It is not one to miss!