Adolescence and young adulthood is a time of identity formation, when young people figure out who they are and who they want to be. One of the ways they do this is by considering the world around them, paying attention to social issues and starting to understand their society and their place in it. Laws and policies signal to young people what society thinks of their value, their role in society and their opportunities for the future.
But the experience of growing up in the post-Roe v. Wade era looks very different from that before the 50-year precedent was overturned in 2022 . Following the Dobbs v.
Jackson Supreme Court decision, more than half ofU.S. adolescents, ages 13-19, now live in a state with severely restricted or no legal abortion access .
As a result, today’s young people are coming of age in what one expert in health law and bioethics has termed an “ era of rights retractions .” I am a developmental psychologist and population health scientist who studies adolescent development and sexual and reproductive health , and it is clear to me from a variety of indicators that, following Dobbs, the experience of adolescence and young adulthood in America has fundamentally changed. Abortion bans are not only affecting those who need an abortion – they are shaping an entire generation.
In 2022, my colleagues and I conducted a national survey of young people between the ages of 14 to 24, beginning shortly after the leak of the Supreme Court’s opinion in the case..