Centre for Health Law, Science and Policy Blog

  Photo credit: Melisa Slep by Rishita Nandagiri and Lucía Berro Pizzarossa Discussions about abortion tend to be dominated by considerations pertaining to medicine (e.g., “safety”) and law (e.g., “legality”). Medication abortion — misoprostol alone or in combination with mifepristone — has dramatically shifted these discussions. Brazilian women used misoprostol to self-manage their abortions in … Continue reading “Abortion debt: revolutionary acts and reclamations of care”

  Photo credit: Farrah Skeiky by Patty Skuster and Heidi Moseson Medication abortion did not begin with a clinical trial; it began at home as self-managed abortion, or abortion without supervision from a clinician. Decades before the 2000 U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of mifepristone for abortion, which is taken alongside misoprostol, feminists in … Continue reading “A full circle moment: legal risks to mifepristone and evidence for abortion with misoprostol alone”

by Elena Caruso While the exact definition of self-managed abortion remains blurred, it currently tends to refer to the end of a pregnancy through the autonomous administration of pills outside of a public health facility. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends self-management for pregnancies under 12 weeks, using a combination of mifepristone and misoprostol (or … Continue reading “Does History Matter?”

Photo credit: Martina Šalov by Jessica Morris The International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) is the world’s largest alliance of national professional societies of obstetricians and gynecologists. FIGO supports comprehensive, equitable, and accessible sexual and reproductive health (SRH) for everyone, recognizing that these are fundamental human rights and essential components needed to achieve global health … Continue reading “Doctors as Advocates for Self-Managed Abortion and Reproductive Justice”

Photo Credit: Martina Šalov by David S. Cohen and Carole Joffe A new story of abortion in America is upon us. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade and rejected a constitutional right to abortion, but so far, because of everything we chronicle in our forthcoming book After Dobbs: How the Supreme … Continue reading “After Dobbs: How the Supreme Court Ended Roe but Not Abortion”

Photo Credit: Julia Burton We continue with the digital symposium, ReproDialogue: Critical Discussions on Self-managed Abortion & Reproductive Justice by guest editor Lucía Berro Pizzarossa. This symposium, a collaboration with Birmingham Law School and Bill of Health a blog by The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School, brings the … Continue reading “When the right to abortion is more than a law: accompaniment and cultural transformations in the political activism of Argentina’s Socorristas en Red”

Photo credit: Martina Šalov We inaugurate the Blog of the Centre for Health Law, Science and Policy with a digital symposium, ReproDialogue: Critical Discussions on Self-managed Abortion & Reproductive Justice by guest editor Lucía Berro Pizzarossa. This symposium, a collaboration with Birmingham Law School and Bill of Health a blog by The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law … Continue reading “ReproDialogue: Critical Discussions on Self-Managed Abortion & Reproductive Justice”