Laying down Our Burdens

Abstract

This author contends that while the Dobbs decision is certainly about abortion, it is also about women’s health in general and, more specifically and dire, Black women and their reproductive health. This article highlights how limiting access to abortion has led to the closing of centers for women’s reproductive health and the loss of preventative care. Using vignettes from her clinical practice, the author speaks to the fears and concerns of her patients of color as they make decisions concerning their health and family plans for the future. Lastly, the author offers the reader insight into how her therapeutic practice seeks to provide a space for understanding, and a quiet place in which patients can lay down their burdens long enough to catch their breath. This encourages insight and can remind us of how to reengage with the world from a stronger and more powerful place.

Keywords:

• Dobbs v. Jackson
• Black
• women of color
• medical racism
• therapy

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cynthia Chalker

Cynthia Chalker, MSS, LCSW, is a Black queer-identified clinical social worker and psychoanalyst who lives and works in New York City. Her research interests include the intersection of race, culture, and identity in psychoanalysis. She is teaching faculty at National Institutes for the Psychotherapies and Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies and a guest presenter around the country and abroad. Cynthia’s writing can be found in various psychoanalytic journals including Psychoanalytic Perspectives, Psychoanalytic Inquiry, and Psychoanalytic Dialogues, where she is an Associate Editor. Her most recent published work, “He’s my Brother,” can be found in the book, Inhabiting Implication in Racial Oppression and in Relational Psychoanalysis, published in 2023 by Routledge.