Mara Bunchbinder, Ph.D. (she/her) is Professor of Social Medicine and Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at UNC – Chapel Hill, as well as core faculty in the UNC Center for Bioethics. Dr. Buchbinder is a medical anthropologist with broad interests in cultures of health, illness, and medicine in the United States. Her recent work focuses on how patients, families, and healthcare providers navigate social and ethical challenges resulting from changes in medical technology, law, and health policy. She co-directs the Study of OB-GYNs in Post-Roe America, which examines the relationships between state abortion policy environments, OB-GYNs' work experiences and stressors, and their health and wellbeing.

Media coverage:

Our research shows a new Texas abortion ruling could have a negative impact in NC | Opinion

How do abortion bans affect doctors? UNC and Duke experts provide perspective

Fearing Legal Threats, Doctors Are Performing C-Sections in Lieu of Abortions

Kate Cox’s Doctor Is Still Fighting to Provide Emergency Abortions, Despite Legal Threats

Recent publications:

Buchbinder, Mara, Kavita S. Arora, Samantha M. McKetchnie, and Erika L. Sabbath. 2024. Sources of Moral Distress Among Obstetrician-Gynecologists in States with Post-Dobbs Abortion Bans: A Multi-State Qualitative Study. SSM Qualitative Research in Health 6:100483.

Sabbath, Erika, Kavita Arora, and Mara Buchbinder. 2024. Supporting OB-GYNs in Abortion-Restrictive States: A Playbook for Institutions. JAMA 332(8):613-614.

Sabbath, Erika, Samantha McKetchnie, Kavita Arora, and Mara Buchbinder. 2024. US Obstetrician-Gynecologists’ Perceived Impacts of Post-Dobbs v Jackson State Abortion Bans. JAMA Network Open. 7(1):e2352109.

Buchbinder, Mara, Joanna Mishtal, Elyse Singer, Claire Wendland. 2022. Society for Medical Anthropology Statement on Supreme Court Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Decision. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 36(4):433-441.

Buchbinder, Mara. (2016). Scripting Dissent: US Abortion Laws, State Power, and the Politics of Scripted Speech. American Anthropologist 118(4):772-783.

Engaged scholarship:

https://www.sopra-research.com/

To reach Mara, email mara_buchbinder@med.unc.edu.

Or find her at her website.