Sidelined Streams: Media, Bureaucracy, and the Absence of Collaborative Evidence in Post-Dobbs Reproductive Policy

• In Event: Media and Politics

Abstract

I, a graduate student in Applied Gender Studies, Public Policy, and Evaluation at Claremont Graduate University, propose a single paper exploring how reproductive policy has evolved in the United States following the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, and what these developments reveal about exclusion, fragmentation, and missed opportunities for collaboration in policymaking. The project centers on the disconnect between formal decision-making structures and community-based knowledge production that remains absent mainly from institutional responses.

Guided by Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Framework, this paper examines how the problem, policy, and politics streams aligned or failed to align following Dobbs in 2022. It interrogates how bureaucracies, media, and political actors defined the crisis, often only reacting once maternal deaths or other consequences made headlines. While mainstream media largely ignored the policy fallout until it became a crisis, smaller, social media-based platforms- often led by grassroots organizers, provided real-time, accessible coverage, offering analysis, infographics, and advocacy that reached communities long before formal institutions attempted to.

Despite their early engagement, these grassroots agencies and movements, along with reproductive justice organizations like the Center for Reproductive Rights and scholars in gender and sexuality studies, have been invariably sidelined in the policy discourse. Their data, field experience, and lived insights, particularly on how abortion restrictions harm Black, Indigenous, immigrant, and low-income communities, rarely seem to inform federal or state policy agendas. Even voices perceived as peripheral, such as digital educators and small media creators, offer critical context in the current context and should be considered key stakeholders within public policy design and discourse.

This research-in-progress draws on a three-pronged approach:

1. Media content analysis comparing mainstream and movement-based reproductive justice narratives;


2. Review of agency responses, including HHS, DOJ, and state executive orders;


3. Comparative case analysis of states with collaborative policy responses versus those with fragmented responsives.

Initial insights indicate a lack of coordination between federal and state governments and a failure to engage community perspectives meaningfully. These gaps reinforce inequities and undermine efforts to create adaptive, evidence-based reproductive policies.

While the idea may seem idealistic, I argue for institutionalizing pre-decisional engagement structures, such as stakeholder panels and community-driven policy town halls that bring together grassroots organizations, digital educators, scholars, and public health actors. These spaces could generate cohesive, equity-informed evidence that policy entrepreneurs and practitioners translate into formal recommendations. Doing so could expand what counts as legitimate policy knowledge and foster more resilient, representative governance.

This paper speaks directly to the 2025 APPAM theme by emphasizing the need for collaborative evidence generation and coordinated policymaking in high-stakes, politically volatile domains. In reproductive policy, transformation depends not only on legal reform or bureaucratic efficiency but also on intentionally including those historically excluded from shaping public policy.

Author

• Nandini Nair, Claremont Graduate University
  Presenting Author