“Inconceivably, 21st century America is staring at not only an end to access to safe abortions but, unthinkably, a perilous erosion in access to our most effective forms of birth control,” writes Sara Rosenbaum, JD, the Harold and Jane Hirsh Professor of Health Law at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. Her Milbank Quarterly opinion piece assesses the impacts of what she calls “a sea of developments in the drama surrounding reproductive health protections for American women and their families.”
Efforts to strip women of core protections appear to be closing in from multiple political directions, Rosenbaum observes. She describes actions emanating from all three branches of the federal government, as well as from state legislatures.
“Having worked on these matters for more than 40 years, I can state unequivocally that I have never witnessed anything like the current environment,” Rosenbaum says. “What is at stake is not just women’s rights that have become part of the fabric of American society, but access to safe health care.”
“Reproductive Health: Assessing the Damage” is available online as an early view of the Milbank Quarterly.