Transnational Legal Effects of Dobbs v. Jackson: Case Studies from Kenya and Nigeria

• In Event: Reproductive Governance After Dobbs: Rights, Borders, and Criminalization

Abstract

This chapter examines initial transnational legal impacts of the United States Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson (2022). Previous research elucidates the negative health outcomes associated with diminished US foreign assistance for reproductive and sexual health organizations in the Global South. In this respect, the US’s financial power expands its scope of influence on population health well beyond its national borders. In addition, we find that Dobbs is providing an impetus for foreign nations to revise their federal approaches to reproductive healthcare. Based on case studies from Kenya and Nigeria, we posit that lower middle-income countries that are institutionally networked with the United States and whose federal abortion provisions were in flux at the time Dobbs was handed down may be uniquely susceptible to this transnational effect. Our argument rests on an assessment of the US’s global symbolic influence, that is, the credibility that nations and leading transnational organizations grant to the country’s jurisprudence. Put simply: Dobbs threatens US citizens’ access to health, bodily autonomy, life, privacy, dignity, equality before the law, and protection from inhumane and unfair treatment. As a result of US economic and symbolic clout, its recent Supreme Court decision may be having analogous effects on citizens across the globe.

Authors

• Miriam Gleckman-Krut, Harvard University

• Mandivavarira Mudarikwa, Amnesty International