Erin R. Johnson
Research
My research seeks to understand how our social construction of the “female” body as fertile and the valorization of motherhood as the ultimate feminine virtue affects health policy, medical practice, and personal experience around menstruation, contraception, and abortion. I am particularly interested in the ways socio-political systems punish individuals assigned female at birth who reject (or even appear to reject) motherhood, how they prioritize the health of potential future children over the health of patients capable of becoming pregnant, and how individuals and communities work to resist these oppressive systems.
Contraceptive Use After the Affordable Care Act
This project used data from the 2017 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey to examine (1) the relationships between insurance status, health care access, and contraceptive use after the implementation of the ACA and (2) how these relationships were affected by states' adoption or non-adoption of Medicaid expansion. This work was presented at APHA in 2019 and at ASA in 2020. Manuscripts are in preparation or under review.
Access and Advocacy: The Practices, Philosophies, and Priorities of Abortion Funds Under Stress
My current research takes up the topic of abortion access in the U.S. in the recent period during which access has been greatly curtailed. I use a mixed-methods approach to understand how abortion funds – organizations that provide financial and practical support to people seeking abortion care – engage communities to resist punitive anti-abortion legislation through mutual aid, community education, and political advocacy, particularly in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Looking across funds’ histories as they react to changing policy, I reveal a balancing act between the roles of a social service organization and that of a social movement actor. Some fund leaders resolve this dilemma by conceptualizing the care work they perform as political resistance, transforming care work into movement work. The case of abortion funds requires an extension to theories of social movements, which largely neglect care and care work. I plan to develop these findings into a book manuscript that uses abortion funds as a lens to understand the role of care and care work in social movements – as a mobilizing force, a tactic used by movement actors, and a sign of movement success.
