Online Program

Oral

Investing in evidence for a public health approach to abortion Advocates use public health rationales to argue both for and against state-level abortion laws that regulate abortion provision. Use of public health rationales for abortion has a long history, with the safety of legal versus illegal abortion as a solid-evidence based public health rationale for legal abortion. However, at this moment in time, the public health rationales are often sound-bites or talking points built to justify values-based positions about abortion rights. In this panel, we seek to begin a conversation about developing a genuine public health approach to abortion. We hope that this conversation will spark dialogue in the field and help us begin to develop a comprehensive public health approach to abortion that can be taught in Schools of Public Health. We have three proposed presentations. The first, by Sarah Roberts, DrPH at ANSIRH, seeks to define a public health approach to abortion using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 10 Essential Public Health Services to sort through published literature claiming or implying a public health approach or rationale for abortion. The second, by Caitlin Gerdts, PhD, MPH at ANSIRH, seeks to reframe harm reduction by discussing the history and scope of harm reduction approaches as the current public health paradigm for unsafe abortion, and proposes an expansion of that paradigm to include a broader definition of “quality of care” for women in restrictive legal settings. The third, by Liza Fuentes, MPH, at Ibis Reproductive Health, raises questions about the politics of the use of abortion data collected by state health departments. Amanda Dennis, DrPH, MBE, at Ibis Reproductive Health, will serve as the discussant.

CE Credits: Medical (CME), Health Education (CHES), Nursing (CNE), Public Health (CPH)