Yale School of Medicine and Yale Law School are hosting a series of panel discussions to delve into the implications of the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that overruled Roe v. Wade and held that the United States Constitution does not confer a right to abortion.
“It’s critical to create opportunities for our community to learn about the wide-ranging effects of the Dobbs decision on patients, providers, and trainees from a range of experts and perspectives,” said Nancy J. Brown, MD, Jean and David W. Wallace Dean of Medicine.
On June 22, the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy at Yale Law School hosted Abortion Before the Supreme Court: What to Expect When Dobbs is Decided. This was followed by Understanding Dobbs: The Post-Roe Landscape on June 27. Moderated by Katherine Kraschel, executive director of the Solomon Center, panelists included Linda Greenhouse, clinical lecturer in law and senior research scholar at Yale Law School; Reva Siegel, Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Professor of Law; and Priscilla Smith, clinical lecturer in law and director of the Study for Reproductive Justice at Yale Law School. The event drew 690 participants on Zoom.
”The impact of the Dobbs decision has profound implications for law, public health, and of course, the practice of medicine, especially for the clinicians who are training to and providing abortion care and we need to be talking to each other,” Kraschel said. “Interdisciplinary exchange of ideas and collaboration is essential to addressing the post-Roe landscape, and a touchstone of the Solomon Center’s work is bringing together community across the university.”
Future panel discussions will take place in the weeks ahead and will focus on topics related to the decision, including maternal and fetal health implications; the potential ramifications for health care providers and trainees; bioethical considerations of the decision; and historical perspectives on access to maternal health care, abortion, and contraception. Panelists will include experts from the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences; Yale School of Medicine’s Program for Biomedical Ethics; Yale Divinity School; and the Department of History of Medicine.
In a response issued immediately after the decision was released, the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences stated that it plans to “continue to offer the full spectrum of reproductive health care to our patients in Connecticut to the fullest extent permitted by law.”