Interpreting Abortion Law in Health Care Practice: Legal Consciousness Among Prenatal Genetic Counselors Post-Dobbs

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

Abstract

How does abortion law operate in everyday clinical settings after Dobbs? This paper extends legal consciousness theory into a new empirical domain: highly regulated professional health care practice. Drawing on in-depth interviews with prenatal genetic counselors practicing across diverse state policy environments, I examine the processes by which clinicians learn about abortion regulations, interpret legal ambiguity, assess institutional and personal risk, and translate those interpretations into counseling practices. I argue that abortion law does not simply constrain clinical care from above; it is co-constructed through ongoing interpretive work among providers navigating institutional policies, professional norms, and fear of criminalization. By centering clinicians as legal interpreters, this study advances socio-legal theory and illuminates how law reshapes reproductive health care beyond abortion provision itself.

Author

• Maya Manian, University of California-San Francisco