Liz Beddoe, Professor of Social Work, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Abortion and social work
Abortion is one element of reproductive healthcare, alongside contraception, pregnancy care, infertility, sexual health, and gender-affirming care. Social workers may contribute to abortion care in many ways including direct clinical practice, advocacy and research.
A recent scoping review by Sharma et al. (2025) identified major themes on the topic of abortion within the social work literature. These included: social workers’ attitudes regarding abortion/abortion-seekers; abortion stigma and barriers in social work; social work and the reproductive justice lens; ethical considerations regarding abortion; social work and abortion policy and advocacy; and social work roles in relation to family planning. Sharma et al.’s comprehensive review reports that, although “social workers align with and are well-placed to advocate for reproductive justice and abortion care, there are significant gaps in education, comprehensive social work professional policies and practice frameworks, and efforts to destigmatize abortion care” within the profession (2025, p. 16). They note that many studies demonstrate that social work students are not receiving adequate education about abortion care or even the legal aspects of abortion in their jurisdictions. Social workers work in wide-ranging contexts within health and social service organizations, yet lack sufficient preparation or ethical frameworks to support reproductive care.
Abortion care is a concern of social work as it falls within the mandate provided by our international body, and as part of our commitment to social justice and addressing health inequalities (Beddoe, 2021; Gomez et al., 2020). The International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) human rights policy related to women states that:
IFSW endorses women’s self-determination in all health care decisions as a core professional value, including all decisions regarding sexual activity and reproduction. Social workers understand that women have the right to receive competent and safe reproductive and sexual health care services free from government, institutional, professional, familial, or other interpersonal limitation or coercion.
(IFSW, 2012, s. 5.7).
An intersectional reproductive justice lens (Morison & Le Grice, 2024; Ross & Solinger, 2017) demands that we contribute to all the elements reported by Sharma et al. (2025) but with a particular focus on ensuring rights, through advocacy, to accessible, affordable healthcare (McKinley et al., 2023). The reproductive justice lens encompasses three primary principles: 1) the right not to have a child; 2) the right to have a child; and 3) the right to parent children in safe and healthy environments (Ross & Solinger, 2017). These principles must underpin both abortion rights in law and in the provision of health care, to fulfil the vision of reproductive justice. However, abortion care is negatively influenced by two related concepts, abortion exceptionalism, and abortion stigma, which are outlined below.
Abortion stigma
In some jurisdictions abortion is not treated the same as other forms of health care, as it is subject to additional laws and regulations. Joffe and Schroeder (2021) recently defined abortion exceptionalism as “the idea that abortion is regulated both differently and more stringently than other medical procedures that are comparable to abortion in complexity and safety” (2021, p. 5). Abortion exceptionalism contributes to abortion stigma (Beddoe & Clarke, 2023). When regulations create barriers to safe, legal abortion, it is easier to label people who terminate pregnancies as breaching social norms (Kumar et al., 2009) with negative inferences about the pregnant person’s morality. Early abortions for reasons of health or foetal abnormality are generally deemed less ‘bad’ while later and/or repeat abortions are deemed ‘bad’ (Norris et al., 2011).
Stigma leads to secrecy which, in turn, erases positive attitudes towards positive or neutral abortion stories, thus reinforcing abortion as exceptional. The dominance of religious beliefs in much of the discourse about abortion, and indeed social work research, has recognized the ethical challenges faced by those whose religion is opposed to abortion. Sharma et al. (2025) argued for an approach that “involves acknowledging clients’ ultimate truths, recognizing religion’s societal impact, and, if necessary, withdrawing or referring cases where a social worker’s religious views impede their duties” (p. 10). The gaps in the preparation of social workers in relation to reproductive health care are compounded by the stigmatization of abortion and a reluctance to have difficult conversations about abortion. Hence, there is a significant necessity to destigmatize abortion and to make space in the social work curriculum about the range of reproductive justice issues that they may encounter in practice (3& Clarke, 2024; Sharma et al., 2025).
Abortion and health inequalities
Reducing health inequalities is a major plank of social work’s drive for social justice. Gomez et al. (2020) argued that, while the commitment to close the health gap is timely, “the absence of a gender conscious analysis, this grand challenge, and associated scholarship and practice, run the risk of perpetuating reproductive oppression” (p. 364). The impacts of repressive abortion laws and the challenges of access and affordability of course intersect with the many other injustices people face under patriarchal capitalism (Ross & Solinger, 2017). Poverty, misogyny, racism, the long-reaching consequences of colonization, intimate partner and family violence, transphobia, homophobia, and ableism meet reproductive health at the intersection of people’s lives (Gomez et al., 2020; Morison & Le Grice, 2024). Deep social inequalities mean that the third principle of the reproductive justice framework, the right to parent children in a safe and healthy environment is unequally able to be realized. Social workers are frequently involved in scrutiny and judgement of women in child welfare, maternity care and mental health services. An intersectional feminist perspective moves us away from seeing women as “merely the object of the social work gaze” (Beddoe, 2021, p. 18) but includes recognition that they may be trapped in a cycle of poverty, violence and racism. Thus, attacks on their right to make decisions about their reproductive lives underscore their vulnerability to harsh judgment and removal of their rights to parent. These rights are intertwined, and a progressive social work must take up advocacy for reproductive justice at micro, meso and macro levels.
Conclusion
There is work to be done to ensure that social workers uphold reproductive rights and advocate for good healthcare (Beddoe, 2021, Lavalette et al., 2022). An exposure to the reproductive justice framework (Ross & Solinger, 2017) in social work education is a good step along the way. Social workers can benefit from the development of a more nuanced understanding of reproductive justice, to be able to position abortion as healthcare within an intersectional perspective, recognizing the role of repressive attitudes to abortion in health inequalities. Professional bodies and social services can establish policies that support person -centred care and equitable access to reproductive health care options, and educational resources are needed to increase knowledge so that social workers can advocate for the client’s right to timely and unbiased information. In addition, an understanding of the impact of abortion stigma is needed, with a commitment to normalize abortion as healthcare, and support those using their right to choices in reproductive care.
References
Beddoe, L. (2021). Reproductive justice, abortion rights and social work. Critical and Radical Social Work, 10(1), 7–22. https://doi.org/10.1332/204986021X16355170868404
Beddoe, L., & Clarke, E. (2023). A critical commentary: Abortion stigma standing in the way of reproductive justice. Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work, 35(4), 125–135. https://anzswjournal.nz/anzsw/article/view/1127
Gomez, A. M., Downey, M. M., Carpenter, E., Leedham, U., Begun, S., Craddock, J., & Ely, G. (2020). Advancing reproductive justice to close the health gap: A call to action for social work. Social Work. https://doi.org/10.1093/sw/swaa034
International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW). (2012). Women. https://www.ifsw.org/women/
Joffe, C., & Schroeder, R. (2021). COVID-19, health care, and abortion exceptionalism in the United States. Perspectives on sexual and reproductive health, 53(1-2), 5–12. https://doi.org/10.1363/psrh.12182
Kumar, A., Hessini, L., & Mitchell, E. M. H. (2009). Conceptualising abortion stigma. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 11(6), 625–639. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691050902842741
Lavalette, M., Beddoe, L., Horgan, G., & Sewpaul, V. (2022). Abortion rights and Roe v Wade: Implications for social work – voices from the social work academy. Critical and Radical Social Work, 10(3), 491–498. https://doi.org/10.1332/204986021×16608280244818
McKinley, B.-D., Cahill, L., & Kumaria, S. (2023). Wade in the water: Suggestions for centering reproductive justice in social work education, practice, and organizing. Smith College Studies in Social Work, 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/00377317.2023.2260487
Morison, T., & Le Grice, J. (2024). Reproductive justice: Illuminating the intersectional politics of sexual and reproductive issues. In E. L. C. Zurbriggen &R. Capdevila (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of power, gender, and psychology (pp. 419–435). Springer.
Norris, A., Bessett, D., Steinberg, J. R., Kavanaugh, M. L., De Zordo, S., & Becker, D. (2011). Abortion stigma: A reconceptualization of constituents, causes, and consequences. Women’s Health Issues, 21(3, Supplement), S49–S54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.whi.2011.02.010
Ross, L., & Solinger, R. (2017). Reproductive justice: An introduction. University of California Press.
Sharma, P., Halverson, J. L., Lee, Y., Sivakumaran, S., Bautista, C., Seiyad, H., Arhinson, A., Bagen, T., Ananthathurai, G., & Begun, S. (2025). Understanding social work’s role in abortion care: A comprehensive scoping review. PLOS ONE, 20(4), e0320260. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0320260
Soon to be published in Fouché, C. & Beddoe, L. (2026). Elgar Encyclopedia of Social Work. Edward Elgar Publishing. The ISBN will be 978-1-0353-1022-7.
