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Preventive Medicine Stigma

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 December 2024

Doron Dorfman*
Affiliation:
Seton Hall University School of Law, Newark, NJ, USA

Abstract

The 2023 Texas federal district court decision Braidwood Management, Inc. vs. Becerra enjoined the enforcement of the Affordable Care Act’s preventive care mandate, which requires “first-dollar” insurance coverage for a range of preventive measures, including pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), an HIV prophylactic drug. Most scholars have analyzed the case with respect to the conflict between public health goals and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). This Article suggests another reading of the Braidwood decision in light of a broader socio-legal phenomenon I call preventive health stigma. Stereotypes attach to the underlying medical condition that a given measure is aimed at preventing, or to the actual preventive measure resulting in stigmatization. Preventive health stigma penetrated the Braidwood decision through the case’s focus on PrEP users’ signaled prurient behavior instead of the drug’s proven health benefits. After offering a novel reading of the Braidwood decision, this Article also shows how preventive health stigma surfaces in the legal treatment of other preventive measures, such as abortion pills, masking, and vaccines. Understanding how stigma attaches to preventive medicine constitutes an important step in understanding how law and prejudice can undermine health reform.

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Articles
Copyright
© 2024 The author(s). Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics and Trustees of Boston University

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