Abortion Care is Health Care

Access to abortion care is an essential component of the right to health. Overturning Roe v. Wade’s constitutional protection of the right to abortion and creating new barriers to legal abortion in the US will have profound effects on public health. This page provides resources for policymakers, advocates, and community members who want to understand who will be most affected by criminalization of abortion care, what those impacts will be, and what they can do to support legal, safe abortion.

The public health community, like the majority of Americans, strongly believe that abortion care is health care. On May 4, 2022 the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health, along with Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health published an open letter to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) urging them to protect the constitutional right to abortion. Our goal was to both bring awareness to the violation of the human right to health and provide evidence that shows public health requires that safe abortion remain legal and available.

Our letter, published in the Washington Post on May 8th, now has over 1,350 signatures, including 26 Deans of schools of public health.