This begins at home: The impact of domestic laws on global gender equality

Reproductive health is a keystone of global public health; women who control if and when she has a child earn higher wages and are more educated and healthier – as are their children. These are empirical facts, providing sound justification for the public health practice of increasing the availability of contraceptives and reproductive healthcare around the globe. The health and economic benefits of allowing women to control their own reproduction are so great that the New York Times columnist's novel, Half the Sky, has flown off the shelves and hit the screen, pleading with Americans to recognize the harm that results globally, when women anywhere are denied equal rights. Yet right here, we are turning back the clock on reproductive health. Forty years after the Supreme Court declared that our constitutional right to privacy encompasses a fundamental right to control one's reproductive capacity, a concerted effort to outlaw abortion is sweeping the nation. State legislatures are entertaining bills that directly target a woman's right to control her own body (e.g., eliminating abortion clinics, banning abortion after 6 weeks of gestation or for rape victims altogether, or even barring women from accessing contraceptives). Some of these bills have become laws. All will be challenged in court. How the courts weigh the constitutionality of these laws will affect not only the health, but also the income potential and education, of women for decades to come. As we think globally about women's health, we must act locally, lest others follow our lead.