The Third Person in the Room

Since the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the popular media has been flooded with stories about pregnant patients experiencing obstetric complications who were denied access to necessary abortion care and suffered tragic consequences. Yet some...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Buchbinder, Mara (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Interlibrary Loan:Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany)
Published: 2025
In: The Hastings Center report
Year: 2025, Volume: 55, Issue: 2, Pages: 2
Further subjects:B patient-physician relationship
B clinical counseling
B Dobbs
B Abortion
B clinical ethics
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
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Summary:Since the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the popular media has been flooded with stories about pregnant patients experiencing obstetric complications who were denied access to necessary abortion care and suffered tragic consequences. Yet some of the lesser-told relevant stories include far subtler impacts on the patient-physician relationship. In this commentary, I reflect on interviews that my team and I conducted with general obstetrician-gynecologists in states with near-total bans on abortion. They shared their sense that abortion bans had resulted in an imaginary “third person” in the room, haunting the clinical encounter and intervening in care. I suggest that post-Dobbs abortion bans drive a wedge into the physician-patient relationship that is figuratively embodied by invoking the “third person” in the room.
ISSN:1552-146X
Contains:Enthalten in: Hastings Center, The Hastings Center report
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1002/hast.4972