Fifty years ago, the United States Supreme Court established that there was a constitutional right for a woman to determine the outcome of a pregnancy. Maternal mortality due to complications of abortion plummeted following legalization, and the Roe v. Wade decision was a landmark achievement in public health. That decision improved the lives of women, families, and society as a whole, as decades of quality scientific research have demonstrated.

With the Dobbs decision, the Supreme Court completely reversed this philosophy and returned the power to make intimate decisions about pregnancies to politicians. The Court has decided that reproductive rights are entirely political and should be decided by state legislatures; thus, women's lives are now even more subject to the whims of politics. Those who will be most hurt by this decision are those who already experience more structural oppression including poorer health outcomes, institutional racism, and poverty.

As the official journal of the Society of Family Planning, and the leading journal publishing abortion-related research, Contraception strongly condemns the United States Supreme Court decision. We honor our colleagues who perform abortion care and provide other reproductive health care. We remain committed to publication of high-quality research on abortion.

From the Contraception Editorial Board

Published online: June 29, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.contraception.2022.06.016

© 2022 Published by Elsevier Inc.