Addictive Design and Social Media: Legal Opinions and Research Roundup

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by Matthew B. Lawrence and Avraham R. Sholkoff

This has been a busy year in research and regulation addressing addictive design by social media platforms, marked by advisories or initiatives from the Surgeon General, American Psychiatric Association, and American Academy of Pediatrics that spotlight public health issues related to social media. With many foundational questions still unanswered, scholars across legal academic disciplines — public health, technology, tort, First Amendment, and beyond — are increasingly turning toward these issues.

For those looking to get up to speed, this post shares major recent judicial rulings along with recent legal research.  If we were writing a syllabus for a course on “the law of addictive design,” the cases and articles listed below would be high on the list for inclusion.

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When the right to abortion is more than a law: accompaniment and cultural transformations in the political activism of Argentina’s Socorristas en Red 

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by Julia Burton

English and Spanish versions/Versiones en inglés y español

In December 2020, the Argentinean Congress passed the Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy Law, (27.610), which legalizes abortion up to and including the 14th week of gestation and, thereafter, in the case of rape or risk to the life or health of the pregnant person. Thus, Argentina became one of the countries that went from having a model of grounds-based legalization (only in the case of rape or risk to the pregnant person) to one that allows abortion on request in the first trimester, and became the second to legalize abortion in the Southern Cone (the first was Uruguay, in 2012). 

Feminist obstinacy and decades of struggle demanding the legalization and decriminalization of abortion added to the movement’s ability to establish alliances and influence existing legal frameworks, making possible the emergence of the “green tide” first and the legalization of abortion later. Within the broad trajectory of struggles for abortion rights, I will focus on Socorristas en Red. 

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Petrie-Flom is Hiring a new Communications Manager

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Come work with us!

The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics (PFC) seeks an experienced, dynamic, passionate, and flexible Communications Manager to support, promote, and creatively amplify the work of PFC with the overall goal of raising its profile and advancing its mission. PFC is a highly collaborative and agile team that works together on all aspects of our work.  

As an integral part of the PFC team, the Communications Manager has three major areas of responsibility: (1) communications and marketing to promote PFC’s work, including managing production of a bi-weekly newsletter and sharing information externally about events, sponsored research projects, publications, and other activities; (2) managing all aspects of PFC’s blog Bill of Health, website, and social media accounts; and (3) writing, editing assistance, and proofreading for the PFC’s written products and publications, as well as support for publications from grant partners.

Check out the full job description here.

After Dobbs: How the Supreme Court Ended Roe but Not Abortion

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Photo credit: Martina Šalov

by David S. Cohen and Carole Joffe

A new story of abortion in America is upon us. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade and rejected a constitutional right to abortion, but so far, because of everything we chronicle in our forthcoming book After Dobbs: How the Supreme Court Ended Roe but Not Abortion (Beacon 2025), abortion has continued to be available for most people. Indeed, much to the surprise of many — including the two of us — the best data we have so far reveals that the number of abortions performed in the United States has increased after the decision.

Dobbs was supposed to dramatically decrease the number of abortions in America, but the hard, nimble, and creative work of the providers where clinics have remained open, the growth and new delivery models of abortion pills, and the never-ending work of those advocates who help with abortion travel and funding refused to let that happen. This continuity of care is a cause for celebration in the face of a devastating blow from the Supreme Court.

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Call for Abstracts: Petrie-Flom Center Announces Annual Conference 2025

Susannah Baruch Leave a comment

The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics is pleased to announce our 2025 annual conference: “Law, Healthcare, and the Aging Brain and Body.” This year’s conference is organized in collaboration with Nina A. Kohn, the David M. Levy Professor of Law at Syracuse University College of Law and the Solomon Center Distinguished Scholar in Elder Law with the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy at Yale Law School and Francis X. Shen, Professor of Law, Solly Robbins Distinguished Research Fellow, and Faculty Member in the Graduate Program in Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota, with assistance from Caitlyn Tabor from the Center for Law, Brain, and Behavior.

Full announcement here

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ReproDialogue: Critical Discussions on Self-Managed Abortion & Reproductive Justice

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Photo credit: Martina Šalov

International Safe Abortion Day is 28 September.

This new digital symposium, ReproDialogue: Critical Discussions on Self-managed Abortion & Reproductive Justice by guest editor Lucía Berro Pizzarossa in collaboration with Birmingham Law School and the Centre for Health Law, Science and Policy at the University of Birmingham, brings the international revolution in self-managed reproductive healthcare into focus. Additional posts will run weekly.

Introduction by Lucía Berro Pizzarossa

Long before telemedicine emerged as a popular avenue for accessing reproductive health services outside of hospitals and clinics, feminist organisations had already pioneered a similar revolution in self-managed reproductive care. For decades, these grassroots groups have been on the frontlines of abortion care, offering essential information and reliable medications to people seeking to manage their reproductive health outside traditional medical institutions. What started as activism driven by necessity has evolved into a global movement that challenges the very structure of abortion care. Today, self-managed abortion (SMA) is more than just a method for accessing abortion services — it’s a transformative force, a model that invites us to reimagine the role of medical systems, policy frameworks, and power in reproductive rights. Read More

Skrmetti and Cisgender Affirming Care

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by Craig Konnoth

In United States v. Skrmetti the Supreme Court will consider whether Tennessee’s broad prohibitions on gender-affirming care for minors violates the Equal Protection Clause. Tennessee’s statute prohibits providers from administering “a medical procedure” to “[e]nabl[e] a minor to identify with…a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex” or “[t]reating purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor’s sex and asserted identity.” These prohibited procedures include “[s]urgically removing, modifying, altering, or entering into tissues, cavities, or organs” and “[p]rescribing, administering, or dispensing any puberty blocker or hormone.”

Notably, the law provides exceptions for children who need these treatments for conditions not related to gender dysphoria. The Tennessee law “permits the use of puberty blockers and hormones to treat congenital conditions, precocious puberty, disease, or physical injury.”

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A Disproportionate Share Payment Calculation Case in the Post-Chevron Era

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Zack Buck

Yet another case that examines the authority of administrative agencies to interpret health care laws will make its way to the Supreme Court next term. And the case could have major implications for hospital financing as well.

In June 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court granted cert in Advocate Christ Medical, et al. v. Becerra, a case that centers on the appropriate calculation of so-called disproportionate share hospital (DSH) payments, which are made to hospitals that treat a high percentage of low-income patients. The Supreme Court will review a 2022 D.C. District Court summary judgment decision for the defendants as affirmed in 2023 by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.

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Evidence and Authority in Abortion Law

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

by Rachel Rebouché

Two years after deciding the case that overturned a constitutional right to abortion, the Supreme Court heard two cases on abortion law this term. The first involved a challenge to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval and regulation of mifepristone, the first drug in a medication abortion. The second concerned the intersection of Idaho’s state abortion ban, which has no exceptions for medical emergencies, and the application of the federal law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), which requires that emergency departments stabilize patients needing emergency care in Medicare-funded hospitals.

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The Ever-Expanding Right to Refuse to Provide Healthcare

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

by Elizabeth Sepper

For the past decade, a blockbuster religion law case has been a feature of every Supreme Court term. The Court dramatically eased the ability of employers to claim religious exemptions. It overturned long-standing Establishment Clause precedent. And it revolutionized Free Exercise Clause doctrine to favor objectors to public health measures and antidiscrimination laws.  With no religious liberty claim on the docket, the 2023-24 term promised to be the exception.

Nevertheless, in a pair of abortion cases, the Court took the opportunity to broadly interpret federal conscience law to override patients’ rights to emergency care. The first, Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (AHM), challenged the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, the abortion pill. The second, Moyle v. United States, involved the conflict between state abortion bans and the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), a federal law that requires life- and health-saving care, including abortion, in emergency departments. Neither seemed to implicate the Church Amendment of 1973, which allows individual providers and institutions to refuse to perform or participate in abortion for religious or moral reasons.

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