Law’s Limits: Abortion and the Social Determinants of Health

Authors

• Maya ManianFollow

Abstract

After Dobbs: How the Supreme Court Ended Roe but Not Abortion (“After Dobbs”) is a prescient and timely response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade and upended nearly five decades of constitutional protection for abortion. In this meticulously structured oral history, law professor David S. Cohen and sociologist Carole Joffe center the voices of abortion providers, clinic administrators, funders, and advocates from across the country. After Dobbs, not only documents the extraordinary persistence of abortion supporters in the face of legal devastation but also bears witness to the emotional toll shouldered by those on the front lines of abortion care in America.

What makes the book particularly powerful is its structure: Cohen and Joffe interviewed the same twenty four individuals at three distinct time intervals in 2022—before, immediately after, and several months following the Dobbs decision. This temporal framework captures the evolution of fear, grief, resolve, and adaptation in real time, offering insight not only into what changed after Dobbs but also how it felt to live through those changes. The voices highlighted in the book span both geography and professional experience—from doctors in southern Illinois and California to hotline workers, mobile clinic coordinators, and legal advocates. This collection of voices underscores the book’s throughline: though Dobbs has thrown the American abortion landscape into legal and medical chaos, the network of people committed to abortion access has refused to break. After Dobbs shares the multifaceted accounts of how abortion providers and supporters pivoted during the year of Roe’s reversal. This focus is not merely anecdotal; it fills a critical gap in legal scholarship by providing on-the-ground narratives of how jurisprudence filters down into healthcare systems, professional norms, and communities. Moreover, After Dobbs complicates the notion that the most salient voices in abortion debates are policymakers and judges.

Repository Citation

Maya Manian, Law’s Limits: Abortion and the Social Determinants of Health, 94 Fordham L. Rev. Online. 87 (2026).
Available at: https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/facsch_lawrev/2339