STIGMATIZATION & CRIMINALIZATION OF PROVIDERS

The US Supreme Court handed down the Dobbs decision overturning Roe on June 24, 2022. Since that time, reproductive health care providers have repeatedly been stigmatized, threatened, and punished by state legislatures, medical boards, and state attorneys general. The American Medical Association called the Supreme Court decision “ an egregious allowance of government intrusion into the medical examination room, a direct attack on the practice of medicine and the patient-physician relationship, and a brazen violation of patients’ rights to evidence-based reproductive health services.” Providers interviewed reflect that reality. People who need reproductive care in states with restrictions and bans will continue to suffer as providers decide the risks are too high to practice in these states, and evidence-based care becomes harder to obtain, or in some cases, not possible at all.<