Abortion Legislation – What’s the problem represented to be? : A critical policy analysis of the US abortion bans and Human Rights

Abstract: Since the Supreme Court's decision of overturning Roe v. Wade’s protection of abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in 2022, multiple states in the U.S. has put abortion bans into effect. “Problems” are not a fixed concept but rather changeable and dependent on who is looking at it. By using Carol Bacchi’s “What’s the problem represented to be?” approach to policy analysis, the problem representations in the U.S. abortion bans and in human rights are identified and contrasted. The problem representation in the abortion bans is identified as “violations of the rights of unborn children” and the problem representation in human rights is identified as “violations of women’s equal rights.” While the problem representations are found to be opposites, they can both still be critiqued by feminist theory and arguably create inequality for women in different ways. How the problem of abortion is represented to be, and the way rights are used and argued for in the abortion bans as well as in human rights shows how they are not giving women equal rights to rights.