Glenn Cohen and his co-author, Eli Adashi, have a new blog post out at the JAMA Forum on reproductive freedom and the presidential election:
It is commonly assumed that the economy will constitute the key, if not sole, battleground of the 2012 presidential election. That may well be the case. In the past several months, however, both parties have paid ever-growing attention to the possibility that the candidates’ positions on issues involving reproductive freedom could affect the leanings of women voters and thereby the final outcome. In conducting intense monitoring—not to mention targeted messaging—in this area, both presidential campaigns have acknowledged that for many women, especially women of reproductive age, reproductive health is as much an economic issue as it is a health care issue.
In a departure from past campaigns, the 2012 presidential election ventures beyond the confines of the abortion issue to incorporate a tapestry of competing ideologies on related questions. Given the interest in these issues, the positions articulated by President Obama and Governor Romney in the domain of reproductive freedom may well be a factor in the 2012 election, because an analysis reveals 2 very different points of view.
