From Roe to Dobbs

Overview

Organizations—in their roles as employers, health care providers, or companies whose products and services are used in the delivery of reproductive health care—are dealing with the myriad issues arising from the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and the overturning of Roe v. Wade, including how those issues impact their businesses, employees, patients, products, and services.

Questions and challenges you may be weighing include the following:

As an employer, if you haven’t already done so, should you update your group health plans or company policies to clarify which abortion- or reproductive care-related services, procedures, and reimbursements are covered or not covered? How do you effectively communicate with employees about such plans and policies? What type of liability can accompany such decisions? Have you been monitoring recent litigation and enforcement activities and their impact on the potential risks associated with maintaining such policies?
As a health care provider, what new changes in the ability to provide abortion services, treat conditions, and distribute contraception will apply to you?
If you manufacture, distribute, prescribe, or dispense medications used to induce abortions, how will the litigation making its way through the federal court impact your operations?
For digital health companies and other entities that maintain personal health information, what are the privacy and data security concerns related to abortion services and other reproductive care?
As a provider of telehealth services, how will evolving changes at the state level and recent litigation in the federal courts impact your ability to prescribe medication abortion and emergency contraception, as well as the ability of pharmacies to deliver these products to patients?
As research institutions and medical product developers, how will new changes impact research activities involving human reproductive tissues and abortion-related products and procedures? Will sponsors performing clinical research on investigational products face heightened liability risks if those studies are conducted in states in which abortion is banned or significantly restricted?

These are just a few of the questions our clients continue to face, and we are here to guide them through the many issues they may need to address as a result of the evolving patchwork of laws and enforcement actions impacting abortion and reproductive health care following the Dobbs decision.

Stay tuned for further updates.