If you want to understand the future of medical care for pregnant women in a post-Roe world, look no further than what is happening in Alabama. As others have pointed out for Slate, the leaked draft majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization paves the way for criminalizing many aspects of pregnancy. While Texas’ abortion ban, S.B. 8, has essentially halted all abortions in the state, Alabama offers a glimpse of a troubling future in which the provision of medical care for pregnant people is deeply intertwined with the cultural attitudes that seek to criminalize “undesirable” pregnancy outcomes.

In the summer of 2020, I got a firsthand experience of these attitudes in action. Three weeks after starting to practice at West Alabama Women’s Center, my application for a medical license was denied and my temporary medical license revoked for what we can’t help but question may have been political reasons. Although I had been hired to offer general gynecological care, the Women’s […]