Adolescent awareness of the changing legal landscape of abortion in the United States and its implications
Open accessAbstract
Purpose Restrictions on abortion in the United States will have disproportionate and negative impacts on adolescents. Prior to the Supreme Court ruling to overturn federal protection of abortion, we sought to examine adolescents' awareness and knowledge about the legal landscape of abortion and how changes might affect them.Methods We fielded a 5-question open-ended survey via text message to a nationwide sample of adolescents aged 14-24 years on May 20, 2022. We coded the responses using inductive consensus coding. Summary statistics were calculated for code frequencies and demographic data, and analyzed qualitatively using visual inspection of results overall and by subgroups (e.g., age, race and ethnicity, gender, and restrictiveness of state of residence).Results A total of 654 responded (79% response rate), of which 11% were under 18 years. Most adolescents were aware of potential changes to abortion access. Most adolescents reported using the internet and social media for information about abortions. Overall, negative emotions about the changing legal landscape predominated, including anger, fear, and sadness. When considering factors for abortion decisions, adolescents most often discussed finances and life circumstances including their future, age, education, maturity, and emotional stability. Themes were relatively, uniformly distributed across subgroups.Discussion Our study suggests that many adolescents are aware of and concerned about potential impacts of abortion restrictions, across a diversity of ages, gender, racial/ethnic, and geographic perspectives. Understanding and amplifying the voices of adolescents during this critical time is necessary to inform novel access solutions and policy initiatives that center the needs of youth.
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Adolescents are aware of the changes to U.S. abortion policy that have resulted from Dobbs and its implications for abortion access.
“Further, adolescents are aware of the changes to U.S. abortion policy that have resulted from Dobbs and its implications for abortion access, demonstrating their attention to and knowledge of the issue in general (Allison et al., 2023).”
From The role (and limits) of developmental neuroscience in determining adolescents' autonomy rights: The case for reproductive and voting rights (2024) · cites this paper as Allison et al., 2023
The Discussion reports that adolescents knew about the changing legal landscape and identified consequences of restricted abortion access. But the Abstract says the survey was conducted on May 20, 2022, before the Supreme Court ruling; it measured awareness of potential changes after the leaked opinion, not awareness of changes that had already resulted from Dobbs. Page numbers are unavailable in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.88)
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- Authors
- Allison, B. A., Vear, K., Hoopes, A. J., & Maslowsky, J.
- Affiliations
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US)
- University of Michigan (US)
- Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute (US)
- University of Illinois Chicago (US)
- Corresponding author
- Allison, Bianca A.
- Venue
- Journal of Adolescent Health
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2023-08
- Volume
- 73
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 230-236
- ISSN
- 1054-139X (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC10524632
- OpenAlex
- W4378980648
- Cited by
- 32
- References
- 15
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 3
- FWCI
- 8.19
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Adolescent Health (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
- Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (K01HD091416, K12HS026369)
- Society of Family Planning (SFPRF15-CM2, SFPRF16-IAA1)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Reproductive Health and Contraception
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy
- Keywords
- abortion restrictions, abortion access, adolescents, abortion knowledge, abortion policy, youth health policy, reproductive health
- MeSH terms
- Abortion, Induced, Abortion, Legal, Adolescent, Female, Humans, Pregnancy, United States
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