Locating Abortion and Contraception on the Obstetric Violence Continuum.

This article examines obstetric violence as a continuum that extends beyond childbirth to include pregnancy prevention, abortion, and antenatal care, emphasizing harms perpetuated by healthcare providers through conscientious objection, criminalization, and contraceptive coercion. It highlights how obstetric violence is a structural, gendered, racialized, and class-based phenomenon that denies the embodied agency of reproductive subjects, including cisgender women and gender-diverse people. The article critiques the limitations of criminal and human rights frameworks in addressing these systemic harms and proposes Martha Fineman's vulnerability theory as a foundation for transforming healthcare institutions toward care-centered, supportive reproductive justice. It calls for a shift from medical gatekeeping to responsive, nonjudgmental care that respects patients' embodied experiences and reproductive autonomy across all reproductive healthcare contexts.