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The MRHL aims to examine reproductive health care through global and local case studies—from African maternal health apps to rural Texas clinic closures and global by-mail pharmaceuticals—and analyze how mobile tools can function within cultural norms and legal frameworks. Our goal is to document available resources and critically assess their representation and effectiveness in addressing reproductive health needs. Our members are currently working on a diverse array of projects.
The MRHL aims to examine reproductive health care through global and local case studies—from African maternal health apps to rural Texas clinic closures and global by-mail pharmaceuticals—and analyze how mobile tools can function within cultural norms and legal frameworks. Our goal is to document available resources and critically assess their representation and effectiveness in addressing reproductive health needs. Our members are currently working on a diverse array of projects.
Anti-Abortion Aesthetics, Affects, and Geographies in Rural America
Anti-Abortion Aesthetics, Affects, and Geographies in Rural America
Feminist scholars have explored the centrality of visual culture in the antiabortion movement, drawing attention to the ways in which objects such as photographs, bumper stickers, and T-shirts have relied on fetal imagery to bring abortion into the everyday lives of Americans. In her influential essay on fetal imagery, Rosalind Petchesky (1987) characterizes these images of the fetus as "wrenched out of real space and time” and demands these images be recontextualized (Petchesky 1987, 268). This project focuses on theorizing the spatial politics of permanent, longstanding anti-abortion visual cultures by exploring the aesthetics and geographies of anti-abortion billboards in rural Nebraska. Drawing on interviews with members of religious organizations as well as visual and spatial analysis of the billboards, we argue that the billboards—most of which have been in place and have not changed for over two decades—function as place-based interventions… These billboards also attempt to intervene in the drive distance rural women must travel to seek abortions. We must consider how these local framings of abortion and abortion seekers map onto the rise of global religious fundamentalism and anti-gender movements.
Barriers to Reproductive Health in a post-Dobbs Texas: An Analysis of Healthcare Provider Perspectives
Barriers to Reproductive Health in a post-Dobbs Texas: An Analysis of Healthcare Provider Perspectives
It is well established how social and structural determinants of health—such as the built environment, economic stability, and legal policies—can all influence health access and outcomes, including with reproductive health in particular. However, no qualitative studies examining the experience of reproductive healthcare providers in Texas have been performed since the introduction of a total abortion ban in 2022. Addressing this research gap, this project aims to examine the current barriers to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) that Texans face by analyzing information gathered from structured interviews with providers across the state. Analysis of fifteen interviews from 2025 highlights eleven primary challenges to SRH, including social media misinformation, distrust of healthcare institutions, linguistic barriers, stigma surrounding sexual & reproductive health, lack of education, fear of immigration enforcement, Texas abortion law, lack of adequate insurance coverage, lack of high-level facilities and specialists in rural areas, staffing issues, and the high cost of healthcare.
“When it's two days and the baby's still there with a heartbeat, and you can't do anything, and the patient's continuously bleeding and losing blood and feeling sicker, of course, they react with anger, like, ‘How can I not get treated for this? What are you waiting for specifically?’ It's like, are you waiting for me to almost die, to do something?” [Hospital director of women's services and former labor & delivery nurse in Eagle Pass, TX]
“A lot of them feel unwanted, or they feel like… they deserve to get HIV.” [Nurse practitioner from El Paso, TX, specializing in HIV care and infectious disease]
“There's… patients that only have coverage when they're pregnant, so that's the only time they see doctors. But they're really sick, they have really bad diabetes, uncontrolled hypertension, and they're not getting the the health care that they need outside of pregnancy.” [Nurse at a women's health clinic in Beaumont, TX]
“I think one question that may be a surprise to those that don't work the healthcare field is that they ask, like, if I don't have money to pay for my services, you won't give me my baby. Like, it's surprising to hear, but... they feel like, if they can't pay for their services, then… there has to be like, a drawback, right?” [Labor & delivery nurse in Laredo, TX]
Mobile Reproductive Health Technologies in Sub-Saharan Africa
Mobile Reproductive Health Technologies in Sub-Saharan Africa
This project examines the rapid expansion of mobile reproductive health (mHealth) applications, using South Africa and Nigeria as the primary case studies, across Sub-Saharan Africa. While these mHealth technologies primarily aim to increase healthcare accessibility, in an attempt to reduce maternal and infant mortality, little academic attention has been brought to how these apps simultaneously govern users through data collection and empower them through providing independence regarding representations of sexual and reproductive health. Instead of approaching mHealth apps as a purely positive solution to the growing healthcare inequality in the region, we argue that these platforms push maternal and infant mortality responsibility on mothers. Coupled with privacy breaches and inaccessibility issues, mHealth applications should be considered a work in progress towards reproductive health justice. Through a comparative analysis of mHealth apps operating in South Africa and Nigeria, alongside their privacy policies, advertising materials, and platform design, we aim to examine how reproductive healthcare is imagined, marketed, and governed in digital spaces. This project combines a side-by-side mHealth app look through a human rights scholarship lens and a legal analysis of African reproductive health policies to determine the necessity and moral implications of reproductive health data sharing. It cannot be ignored that questions of how digital governance—especially regarding mHealth apps—reveal inequalities in healthcare access and postcolonial development have been widely cast aside in scholarly conversations. We challenge the traditional narratives of technological neutrality and responsibility in healthcare deserts, suggesting a reshaping of reproductive rights in the Global South.
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