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When Patients Are Their Own Doctors: Roe V. Wade In An Era Of Self-Managed Care, Yvonne F. Lindgren

Faculty Works

The Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade framed the abortion right as a right to make the abortion decision in consultation with a “responsible physician.” Under this framing, doctors were cast in the role of medical “gatekeepers” to mediate patient access to abortion. In the ensuing years, the doctor-patient relationship has become the site of restrictive abortion regulations in many states. This Article argues that Roe’s framing suffers from a foundational flaw: While the gatekeeper framing may have been appropriate in the Roe era when abortion was surgical and non-clinical abortions were potentially lethal, today, medication abortion—a two-drug non-surgical regimen …