Laurel Brooke Watson

The purpose of this study was to explore the role of abortion narratives in predicting reproductive justice (RJ) collective action intentions, as well as to understand the psychological mechanisms that may explain this link. In doing so, we integrated a reproductive justice framework and sought to extend the social identity model of collective action to reproductive justice advocacy. Predominantly white, heterosexual participants were randomly assigned to one of the three conditions in which participants read an abortion narrative involving rape, consensual sex, or no written narrative, and were then assessed on outcome variables. Results revealed that, compared to participants in the control condition (i.e., no abortion narrative), participants in the abortion condition involving rape engaged in more RJ collective action intentions, which was explained by greater group-based anger and efficacy beliefs about the RJ movement. Compared to participants in the abortion condition involving consensual sex, those who read an abortion narrative involving rape reported greater group-based anger, which was then related to more RJ collective action intentions. Moreover, participants who more strongly identified as an RJ advocate and read the abortion narrative involving rape reported greater collective action intentions compared to their counterparts in the control and consensual conditions. These findings suggest that exposure to exceptionalized abortion narratives involving rape may predict greater RJ advocacy, even among those who more strongly identify as RJ advocates.

In this study, we examined how sexual objectification, abortion circumstance, and sexist attitudes interacted to affect abortion stigma and dehumanization of women who have abortions. A total of 237 participants were randomly assigned to a vignette depicting a woman who was either (a) sexually objectified or (b) not sexually objectified and who sought an abortion in either (a) a typical circumstance (i.e., ill timed) or (b) an exceptionalized circumstance (i.e., fetal anomaly). Results indicated that in typical abortion circumstances, women who have abortions are at risk of dehumanization, regardless of whether they are seen as sexual objects. In contrast, exceptionalized conditions may yield humanizing effects for women who have abortions, unless they are seen as sexual objects. Furthermore, participants with moderate and high levels of hostile sexism judged women who have abortions more harshly: they believed that the woman deserved more punishment for having an abortion for typical reasons compared to having an abortion for exceptionalized reasons. Results also suggested that women who have abortions for more typical reasons may be granted less moral patiency (i.e., moral concern), regardless of sexual objectification. However, under exceptionalized circumstances, sexual objectification diminished perceptions of moral patiency among participants with moderate and high levels of hostile sexism. In short, our findings suggest that sexual objectification, abortion circumstance, and hostile sexism operate concomitantly to affect how women who have abortions are evaluated and perceived.

In the present study, we examined relations among reactions to the Dobbs v. Jackson court ruling (heretofore adverse reactions), psychological distress, collective action, and abortion history among cisgender women and people assigned female at birth. Specifically, we examined the ways in which the relation between adverse reactions to the Dobbs v. Jackson decision and psychological distress may vary according to involvement in reproductive justice and antiabortion collective action and abortion history. Results ( n = 894) revealed that adverse reactions were significantly positively related to psychological distress. Furthermore, involvement in reproductive justice collective action was significantly positive to psychological distress whereas the relation between antiabortion collective action and psychological distress was nonsignificant. The positive relation between adverse reactions and psychological distress was exacerbated by high levels of involvement in reproductive justice and weakened by low levels of involvement in antiabortion collective action, and these relations did not vary according to abortion history. In addition, the relation between involvement in antiabortion collective action and psychological distress was significant and positive among those who had had an abortion and nonsignificant for those who had not. These findings reveal the importance of mental health providers attending to their clients’ abortion-related beliefs and histories, involvement in collective action, and psychological distress. Additional online materials for this article are available on PWQ's website at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/03616843231210219 .

At the one-year mark since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, there is an urgent, vital need for feminist scholarship that addresses the ways structural stigma and oppressive policy affect diverse groups of women and people assigned female at birth (AFAB). Accordingly, in this introduction to the special issue of Psychology of Women Quarterly, we provide a historical overview and timeline of reproductive rights and (in)justice in the United States in order to illustrate how we have arrived at this perilous moment in history. Reproductive (in)justice exacerbates inequities regarding who has been encouraged to reproduce, who has been denied reproductive autonomy, and who has been required to reproduce and refused the right to parent their children in safe environments. Accordingly, we aver the importance of centering an intersectional and reproductive justice framework in understanding how coalescing forms of oppression (e.g., racism, capitalism, sexism, ableism) circumscribe reproductive autonomy. We begin the special issue with articles that examine how social policy and structural oppression have violated women's and people AFAB reproductive healthcare, followed by articles that examine how such policy and oppression affect women's reproductive decision-making. We conclude this special issue with an article that centers reproductive justice advocacy in the ongoing fight for reproductive rights and bodily autonomy.

This study examined the relations among gendered racial microaggressions, resilience, individual and collective self-esteem, and traumatic stress among Black women. Personal self-esteem significantly mediated the positive relation between gendered racial microaggressions and traumatic stress. Resilience was also directly negatively related to traumatic stress and positively related to personal and collective self-esteem. Resilience moderated the positive relation between gendered racial microaggressions and membership identity/esteem. That is, at high levels of resilience, membership identity/esteem remained high, regardless of the frequency of gendered racial microaggressions. However, at low and average levels of resilience, membership identity/esteem was higher when experiencing more frequent gendered racial microaggressions. Mental health providers are encouraged to consider the deleterious role of gendered racial microaggressions in Black women’s traumatic stress. In addition, mental health providers should also consider the role of resilience in potentially mitigating traumatic stress and fostering Black women’s personal and collective self-esteem.