Author: David S. Cohen

David S. Cohen is professor of law at Drexel University’s Kline School of Law in Philadelphia and is the coauthor of Living in the Crosshairs: The Untold Stories of Anti-Abortion Terrorism (2015). His latest book is After Dobbs: How the Supreme Court Ended Roe but Not Abortion.

Abortion Access Can’t Depend on Rage Donations

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Now, almost three and a half years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the numbers are clear that abortion in the U.S. has, to the shock of most, continued to rise. But we also have data showing that a small but not trivial number of people are continuing their pregnancies to birth due to abortion bans. To us, what this shows is clear: that overturning Roe has prompted ingenuity, persistence, and resistance among providers and patients but is also leaving many people behind. Ultimately, this is no way to deliver healthcare.

The provision of healthcare—and abortion is healthcare—must be publicly supported in order to be equitable and accessible. When this assistance relies on inconsistent large-scale private donations, as well as the almost-supernatural work of abortion providers and supporters, it’s no wonder that some people are slipping through the cracks, even while abortion numbers are rising.

Three Years After Dobbs, Abortion Numbers Have Surprisingly Gone Up

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After the Supreme Court paved the way for a dozen or more states to ban abortion for the first time in almost half a century, abortion access is thriving in ways no one predicted.

How did such a counterintuitive phenomenon happen? Our recent book, After Dobbs: How the Supreme Court Ended Roe but Not Abortion, helps explain what’s going on behind the numbers. In simplest terms, this increase came about through a combination of an extraordinary mobilization on the part of abortion providers and their allies, the grit and determination of people who decide to have an abortion, and the massive amount of money poured into pro-abortion groups after Dobbs.

The Real Challenges of Exercising the Right to an Abortion—and What You Can Do About It

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For almost half a century, every American woman has had the constitutional right to an abortion. But—as UCSF sociologist Carole Joffe and Drexel law professor David S. Cohen show in their new book, “Obstacle Course: The Everyday Struggle to Get an Abortion in America”—the reality of exercising one’s reproductive rights is riddled with hurdles designed by anti-abortion activists and politicians.