Professor David S. Cohen
A new book by Drexel Kline School of Law professor David S. Cohen and University of California San Francisco sociologist Carole Joffe explores the landscape of abortion access in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in June 2022. That monumental ruling overturned 1973’s Roe vs. Wade decision, which established abortion as a constitutionally protected right.
The authors interviewed two dozen people across various fields related to abortion and in different state political environments to examine how the abortion-providing community and its allies prepared for, and then responded to, changes in the law.
After Dobbs: How the Supreme Court Ended Roe But Not Abortion, which was released March 25 by Beacon Press, reveals a fluid environment still being defined by litigation, politics and the collision of real people’s lives with sometimes ambiguous statutes that fail to account for the fundamental realities of reproductive medicine.
Immediately after the Dobbs decision, many pro-choice advocates feared that abortion access in the United States would decrease sharply; and that a full ban on the procedure seemed, for the first time in 50 years, like a distinct possibility. But the book reveals how the dedicated work of people on the ground has allowed abortion to survive the post-Dobbs environment in ways that no one predicted.
Two years after the Dobbs decision, abortions had actually increased by 10 percent, owing to a variety of factors. As the book details, among the major reasons for the increase are the wider availability of the abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol (via telehealth and activist pro-choice distributors); and the adaptations of numerous states bordering or close to states that have completely banned abortion.
“One of the byproducts of Dobbs is that the states where it’s legal have in many cases liberalized their abortion laws, making abortion more accessible than before,” said Cohen in an interview. “Abortion providers are taking creative paths, opening new clinics and accommodating more out-of-state clients.
“There has been an influx of money—at least right after Dobbs, which is the period the book covers—which led to more robust support networks, including heavier involvement from concerned legal organizations; a free flow of abortion pills; and a legion of volunteers putting their money and time where their hearts are. Whether this level of funding and volume is sustainable is another question.”
In the pre-Dobbs era, providing abortion care was decidedly challenging in many parts of the country. For abortion care in those places, Dobbs was cataclysmic. Clinics were shuttered, and legal options for abortion were suddenly nonexistent.
“The most devastating stories we heard were people telling us about their life’s work suddenly being illegal, and now they’re a felon if they do what they’ve been trained to do,” Cohen said during a March 14, 2025 webinar hosted by Drexel Kline Law’s Health Law program. (Watch the webinar on YouTube.)
The post-Dobbs landscape is far less chaotic than it was in the immediate aftermath of the decision, but key aspects of the issue remain unsettled, especially given the volatility and distinctly illiberal bent of the second Trump administration.
“I wouldn’t hazard a prediction of what the abortion landscape will look like in the near future. We just don’t know what’s going to happen. The anti-abortion states are going to keep trying to clamp down, in reaction to what neighboring states where it’s legal are doing. The courts are another variable. There’s still huge uncertainty around abortion in the U.S.,” said Cohen in an interview.
After Dobbs is Cohen’s third book. His previous books include Obstacle Course: The Everyday Struggle to Get an Abortion in America (California University Press, 2020), also co-written with Joffe, and Living in the Crosshairs: The Untold Stories of Anti-Abortion Terrorism (Oxford University Press, 2015), which he co-authored with Drexel Kline alumna Krysten Connon.