One mental health professional's search for reproductive and bodily autonomy

     Research plays a pivotal role in our responsibility to women to be their allies, advocates, and an activist for their rights. As psychologists, we are obligated to society to become involved in“public policy to inform social practices” and use this scientific and professionally acquired knowledge to advocate for better human conditions (Melton, 2018). Melton (2018) also suggests that psychologists are ethically bound by the APA’s ethical guidelines to “protect civil and human rights” and offer aid to society in “developing informed judgments and choices concerning human behavior.      In the case of a woman’s right to bodily autonomy, Jozkowski et al. (2019), even before Texas enacted the Heartbeat Act, recognized the implications of overturning Roe v. Wade. The study conducted by Jozkowski and colleagues (2019) sought to comprehensively examine and understand people’s knowledge and sentiments of Roe versus Wade. They found that most people knew that t...

At the forefront of the fight for rights for gender equality lies a women’s movement seeking rights to bodily autonomy, predominantly their right to independent control of reproductive options. Embedded deep within this issue, women continue to fight for the right to make informed choices about their bodies, which some sources claim to be universally valued (allAfrica.com, 2021). While this is not a new topic of debate, it is one that has re-emerged. From the Comstock Act in 1873, which prevented the U.S. Postal Service from mailing contraceptives while also giving the U.S.P.S authority to confiscate any birth control found in the mail, to Margaret Sanger’s conviction that was eventually overturned for opening a birth control clinic in 1916 and 1918, respectively, to the more recently overturned 1973 court decision of Roe versus Wade, which argued the constitutionality of a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy by abortion (Baker et al., 2020; Roe v. Wade, 1973).  This court decis...

     This issue is of particular interest to me as I am a biological female whose reproductive organs remain intact; I have numerous others within my personal and professional life who will be affected by the proposed and enacted changes to women’s reproductive rights. While the current changes are only regarding abortions. Where does the line become drawn as to how far to revert women’s rights? How long until we are criminalized for having a miscarriage or going to another state which offers legal abortions and returning to their home state only to be met with legal ramifications? The questions about the consequences of overturning Roe v. Wade and the already enacted Texas “Heartbeat Act” is unending and terrify me about what the future holds for current generations of women and those who have yet to be born.

     In an interview with multiple experts, Khiara M. Bridges, a law professor at the University of California-Berkeley, stated the following concerning women’s constitutional guarantee that their rights will be protected: "Because women were not part of the body politic, the rights that are important to people who can get pregnant are just not contemplated by the Constitution. The drafters of the Constitution could care less about what women's concerns were, what they needed in order to be fully human in society." (Counts, 2022, p. 17) The conversation that Ms. Bridges and other experts in the field are concerned with stems from a leaked decision to overturn the 1973 court decision of Roe versus Wade, a decision that argued the constitutionality of a women’s right to privacy to terminate or abort her pregnancy in the first and second trimesters (Baker et al., 2020; Roe v. Wade, 1973). This decision sparked the controversy that separated the nation into adopting a pro-ch...