The Abortion Privilege: What Power Looks Like in the Aftermath of A Landmark Abortion Case Overturned

Abstract

On June 24, 2022, one of the most controversial Supreme Court cases, Roe v. Wade, landed in a ruling to overturn individual protections for abortion after five decades of legality. The decision, symbolizing not only reproductive freedom, reshaped America’s social, cultural, and economic landscapes. While scholars long studied variables influencing abortion attitudes in public polling data, few paid attention to rooting people’s attitudes in associated risks and imagined consequences of abortion overturned. The study used quantitative data from a demographic, attitudinal survey, and qualitative data from in-depth interviews to unpack the dense aftermath of the overturning of abortion rights on four levels: the individual, relational, societal, and cultural levels. Whereas gendered childcare, bodily autonomy, and the disenfranchisement of economic and symbolic power drove the discussions at the individual and relational levels, apprehension in the feminist agenda, political polarization, and socioeconomic status reflected public insecurities on the societal and cultural levels. This work conceptualized the profound social ramifications of abortion overturned by understanding people’s perceived social risks on different levels of impact, pointing out new productions of inequalities in this process.