Public Policy – Abortion Laws

Public Policy – Abortion Laws

Ever since the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision of 1973 (Ziegler 2017), America has not seen as many restrictive abortion policies enacted in a year as there have been in 2021. One example is the case of Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which challenged the 15-week abortion ban in Mississippi (Spindelman 2021). However, the Supreme Court ruled that a Texas law takes place, the S.B. 8, which effectively prohibits abortion after six weeks and additionally gives a right to anyone who wants to sue a person for helping another person get abortion care.

These policies have affected public, private, and non-profit organizations adversely. In the education sector, access to abortion by students, especially African American women, gives them a higher chance of pursuing further education and increases their graduation rates (Bernstein et al., 2019). Access to abortion has also been shown to increase women’s involvement in the workforce, as well as reduce unintended births. However, with numerous restrictive rules, women and girls who unintentionally get pregnant are being forced to quit work and school and raise their children.

The most affected sector is the non-profit organizations whose goal is to help individuals like teenage mothers or poor single mothers. Studies have shown that the people primarily affected by the abortion restriction laws are poor African American women (Bernstein et al., 2019). Hence, with these policies, the number of children born to impoverished mothers will only increase. Consequently, non-profit organizations will be overwhelmed with the number of people needing their help.

Additionally, the women will be forced to leave work, and young girls will have to drop out of school to raise their children if they accidentally get pregnant. Even though the current administration is trying to undo some of the restrictive policies on abortion, the process may take a while. Till then, the burden of taking care of poor mothers and their children will fall on the non-profit sector.

References

Bernstein, A., & Jones, K. M. (2019). THE ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF ABORTION ACCESS: A Review of the Evidence. Institute for Women’s Policy Research. Washington DC.

Spindelman, M. (2021). Mississippi’s Originalism: Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health and the Attack on Sexual Freedom. The American Prospect (October 19, 2021), https://prospect.Org/justice/Mississippis-originalism/., Ohio State Legal Studies Research Paper, (664).

Ziegler, M. (2017). Roe v. Wade. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History.

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Find a public policy that has been implemented by some level of government in the past decade. Explain how the policy you chose affected the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Did it affect one sector significantly more than the others? Explain why or why not.