A panel of activists and legal experts said at an event hosted by the Harvard School of Public Health on Friday that the recent Supreme Court ruling would have a series of negative impacts on public health in the United States.
Moderated by Washington Post political columnist Dana Milbank, the panel included National Urban League president Mark Morial, attorney Esther Sanchez Gomez, former family planning president Cecil Richards, California. Leah Stokes, professor of political science at the University of Santa Barbara, was included.
Panelists discussed the Supreme Court’s June 24 ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, which stripped constitutional protections against abortion.
“Young people are upset and worried,” Richards said.
She called on more medical professionals to talk about how the court’s ruling affects patients.
“Access to reproductive health care is not a political issue, it is a medical issue,” she said.
The commission said the court’s abortion ruling would disproportionately affect women of color. increased by 21% overall and by 33% among black women.
Throughout the event, panelists discussed the rise of disinformation in American politics. Moderator Milbank said the “weaponization of disinformation” has made it “impossible to reach consensus or even make intelligent arguments in the political discourse”.
Sanchez-Gomez said disinformation played a role in the political discourse around the recent gun rights case taken in court.
Panelists also discussed a June Supreme Court ruling that cuts the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Stokes said Congress has since passed the wording as part of the recently signed Inflation Reduction Act.
“In a way, we have more powers to ensure that we can deal with climate change, more legal bulwarks,” she said. “I hope people aren’t too depressed about this particular case.”
Still, Stokes said the court’s recent ruling was “out of step with the public” and could “undermine its legitimacy.”
Sanchez-Gomez said public health research “gives us the tools to solve these problems, especially [the] “Shoot Prevention Space”
“Bringing young people together and empowering them to have these conversations and providing them with tools like public health research is a very important part of this conversation,” she said.
— Staff writer Dorcas Y. Gadri can be reached at dorcas.gadri@thecrimson.com.
— Staff Writer Chris Kishore can be reached at krishi.kishore@thecrimson.com.
