Many current abortion regulations represent an over-medicalization of abortion or a corruption of abortion's true medical nature, with disproportionate consequences to women with lower incomes and lesser means. This article explores the effects of unnecessary and harmful abortion restrictions on women living in poverty. A brief summary of the major abortion rights cases explains how the Constitution, as currently interpreted, vests the government and sometimes the medical profession with the power to protect women's health, rather than granting this power to (...) women themselves. The article then argues for a new approach for protecting women's health and respecting their dignity by reframing reproductive rights as health rights that women themselves can assert. (shrink)

Many pregnant women use pregnancy related mHealth applications, encompassing a variety of pregnancy apps and wearables. These are mostly directed at supporting a healthier fetal development. In this article we argue that the increasing dominance of PRmHealth stands in want of empirical knowledge affirming its beneficence in terms of improved pregnancy outcomes. This is a crucial ethical issue, especially in the light of concerns about increasing pressures and growing responsibilities ascribed to pregnant women, which may, in turn, be reinforced by (...) PRmHealth. A point can be made that it would be ethically askew if PRmHealth does not lead to improved pregnancy outcomes, while at the same time increasing maternal duties to closely monitor fetal development. We conclude that more research is needed to get a view on the benefits and burdens of PRmHealth in order to ethically assess whether the latter are proportionate to the former. If not, there is a case in saying that endorsement of PRmHealth is overdemanding. (shrink)