Lindgren, Yvonne. “The Rhetoric of Choice: Restoring Healthcare to the Abortion Right.” Hastings Law Journal 64 (n.d.): 385–422.
Annotation
This article looks at the right to abortion funding in the context of the requirement that the government provide access to healthcare (often referred to as “the right to healthcare framework”). It concludes if there is a right to healthcare, and abortion is part of healthcare, the government must fund abortion because it is not merely the ability to choose an abortion that fulfills one’s right to healthcare, but rather, the ability to actually access an abortion. This article ultimately supports abortion access and abortion funding through arguments related to the right to healthcare and through the more traditional right to choose. This article argues that abortion funding should not be disconnected from the context of healthcare. While courts and legislatures have technically upheld the “right to choose” an abortion established in Roe, courts have restricted access to abortion-related healthcare. The author argues that framing abortion as merely the right to choose (often referred to as decisional autonomy) without framing it within a healthcare context, is not as strong as analyzing abortion as integrally linked to healthcare.