Morbidity and mortality (M&M) implications of the US Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision are not widely known and are now harder than ever to collect, assess, and act upon. Lack of accurate, complete, and timely M&M data is critical from a public health standpoint because it undermines collective capacity to identify and respond to clinical, legal, and ethical trouble pregnant people and their clinicians began facing when standard of care became illegal or access to it was substantially compromised in many states.
Pregnancy-related M&M measures have long been imperfect, making it even more empirically and practically complex to assess how maternal, fetal, and infant health has been undermined by abortion restrictions or bans passed in the social, cultural, political, and legislative wake of Dobbs. Historical stigma of abortion care has been acutely exacerbated by legal threats to patients and clinicians, many of whom have been pressed, especially in restricted states, into opaque documentation, data sharing, and health information disclosure practices to avoid criminal prosecution or to protect patients’ privacy and safety. This theme issue considers whether, when, how, and by whom US data about illness, injury, and deaths due to delayed or denied abortion care should be collected. It also examines what should count as quality data and considers how we might more fully understand the scope and magnitude of potential harms to pregnant people and infants of denied and delayed health care after Dobbs.
All manuscripts submitted for peer review consideration and inclusion in this issue must follow Instructions for Authors and be submitted by 30 March 2025.
The AMA Journal of Ethics® invites original, English-language contributions for peer review consideration on the upcoming themes.