Abortion support in the USA after Dobbs : collaboration, radical acceptance, and the persistent norm of clinician-supervised care

In the USA, non-profit abortion support organisations provide resources to ameliorate abortion-related financial, logistical, informational, and psychosocial challenges, but do not provide abortion services. This sector developed under a regulatory environment in which clinic-based abortion was legal and abortion outside of clinician supervision was uncommon. The US Supreme Court’s 2022 overturning of constitutional protection of abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and the rise of medication abortion without clinician supervision have substantially changed the US abortion access landscape. Post-Dobbs, abortion support does not have to be tethered to a clinician-managed provision model, prompting research questions about whether and how the sector’s relationship to this model operates post-Dobbs. Drawing on findings from interviews with 32 abortion support organisation staff and volunteers from 17 organisations, this paper finds that abortion support organisations, both individually and as a group, operate in novel, collective ways that do not depend on a clinician-based model of abortion provision, including by prioritising resource sharing on behalf of clients and by incubating and instilling a philosophy of radical non-judgement of clients’ circumstances. Despite this, however, their activities remain broadly constructed so as to privilege clinician-supervised abortion, leaving the sector deeply tied to the formal healthcare system.