How political institutions shape abortion law in the United States, Britain and Canada

The topic of abortion is a complex and controversial one for most contemporary societies, with the arguments around it consisting of multiple dimensions including population control, sanctity of life, freedom of choice and parental consent, to name but a few. In a recent lecture, the director of the London School of Economics and Political Science, Professor Craig Calhoun, promised a provocative discussion as Drew Halfmann, University of Calfornia, argued that political institutions have been, and are, key in the development and implementation of abortion policies. In his book Doctors and Demonstrators, Drew Halfmann looks at how three countries, Britain, Canada and the United States have differed significantly in their policies on abortion despite sharing similar heritage and culture. Here we look at how gatekeeping evolved in all three countries, which actors influenced policy and the how abortion became so politicised in the US

Mechanisms of Social Movement Market Innovation: The Birth of the American Abortion Clinic

How do social movements affect the development and diffusion of new organizational forms? This article theorizes and probes the plausibility of five mechanisms: 1) shaping state administrative regulation 2) entrepreneurship for the purpose of modeling 3) regulating market actors through competition and brokerage 4) developing and disseminating new technologies and 5) conducting scientific research on the efficacy and safety of new and existing technologies, products and services. It provides evidence for the role of these mechanisms in the creation and diffusion of non-hospital abortion clinics in New York City between April 1970, when the state of New York legalized early "on-request" abortions, and January 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized such abortions nationwid

Woman-Centered Design through Humanity, Activism, and Inclusion

Women account for over half of the global population, however, continue to be subject to systematic and systemic disadvantage, particularly in terms of access to health and education. At every intersection, where systemic inequality accounts for greater loss of life or limitations on full and healthy living, women are more greatly impacted by those inequalities. The design of technologies is no different, the very definition of technology is historically cast in terms of male activities, and advancements in the field are critical to improve women's quality of life. This article views HCI, a relatively new field, as well positioned to act critically in the ways that technology serve, refigure, and redefine women's bodies. Indeed, the female body remains a contested topic, a restriction to the development of women's health. On one hand, the field of women's health has attended to the medicalization of the body and therefore is to be understood through medical language and knowledge. On the other hand, the framing of issues associated with women's health and people's experiences of and within such system(s) remain problematic for many. This is visible today in, e.g., socio-cultural practices in disparate geographies or medical devices within a clinic or the home. Moreover, the biological body is part of a great unmentionable, i.e., the perils of essentialism. We contend that it is necessary, pragmatically and ethically, for HCI to turn its attention toward a woman-centered design approach. While previous research has argued for the dangers of gender-demarcated design work, we advance that designing for and with women should not be regarded as ghettoizing, but instead as critical to improving women's experiences in bodily transactions, choices, rights, and access to and in health and care. In this article, we consider how and why designing with and for woman matters. We use our design-led research as a way to speak to and illustrate alternatives to designing for and with women within HCI.QC 20200930</p

Mechanisms of Social Movement Market Innovation: The Birth of the American Abortion Clinic

How do social movements affect the development and diffusion of new organizational forms? This article theorizes and probes the plausibility of five mechanisms: 1) shaping state administrative regulation 2) entrepreneurship for the purpose of modeling 3) regulating market actors through competition and brokerage 4) developing and disseminating new technologies and 5) conducting scientific research on the efficacy and safety of new and existing technologies, products and services. It provides evidence for the role of these mechanisms in the creation and diffusion of non-hospital abortion clinics in New York City between April 1970, when the state of New York legalized early "on-request" abortions, and January 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized such abortions nationwid

The Biomedical Legacy in Minority Health Policy-Making, 1975-2002

Through content analysis, the study traces the relative prominence of “biomedical” and “public health” approaches in congressional bills aimed at improving the health of racial and ethnic minorities over a 28-year period. It documents a surge of interest in minority health during the late 1980s and early 1990s and highlights the dominance of biomedical initiatives during this period. Drawing on historical methods and interviews with key informants, the paper explains these patterns by detailing the ways in which policy legacies shaped the interests, opportunities and ideas of interest groups and policy-makers