The Third Person in the Room

Abstract

Since the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the popular media has been flooded with stories about pregnant patients experiencing obstetric complications who were denied access to necessary abortion care and suffered tragic consequences. Yet some of the lesser-told relevant stories include far subtler impacts on the patient-physician relationship. In this commentary, I reflect on interviews that my team and I conducted with general obstetrician-gynecologists in states with near-total bans on abortion. They shared their sense that abortion bans had resulted in an imaginary “third person” in the room, haunting the clinical encounter and intervening in care. I suggest that post-Dobbs abortion bans drive a wedge into the physician-patient relationship that is figuratively embodied by invoking the “third person” in the room.