#the turnaway study

[iirulancorrino]

Diana Greene Foster, The Turnaway Study: The Cost of Denying Women Access to Abortion

[whilereadingandwalking]

The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, a Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having—or Being Denied—an Abortion by Diana Greene Foster is a superb and necessary book. It's the first major study done to get scientific data to compare women who couldn't get an abortion compared to women who did—rather than doing a study comparing women who got an abortion to all women who had a child, which includes wanted and planned pregnancies.

The study has a lot of learnings that I expected—but also a lot of learnings that I didn't. It's remarkably even-handed and open. But overall, its point of view is that the data shows that women accurately weigh consequences and judge for themselves whether it's the right time for them to have a child. The reasons women give for not wanting a child are carried out in the data—for example, many women say they don't have the money to raise a child, and women who are forced to carry a child to term struggle financially. Women deserve the "dignity of risk"—the right to make their own decisions, even ones they might regret—and the data shows that overwhelmingly, women who choose to get an abortion and get one do not regret it.

Now, if you believe that abortion is murder, the data from this study can't prove you right or wrong. What it can do is target misconceptions and take down conjecture. Conservatives like to argue in recent years that barriers to abortion are necessary to protect women's health. But based on the statistics, legal abortion is extremely safe (far safer than carrying a child to term). This study tells us what the actual consequences of having an abortion or being denied an abortion are—in terms of mental health, domestic violence, life satisfaction, happiness and development of existing and future children, and more.

This book is so full of vital knowledge I didn't anticipate, but the biggest one for me personally was its analysis of late-term abortions. This study showed that the main reasons for late-term abortions were learning about a pregnancy late and being delayed due to the financial and bureaucratic difficulties of accessing an abortion. She makes the case that late-term abortions could be vastly reduced if getting an abortion was easier, and that improving sex ed, contraceptive access, and other resources would help women catch pregnancies earlier. It is very rare that a woman takes a long time to decide whether abortion is right for her—she seems to make a decision quickly as soon as she knows.

The book includes a good conclusion and analysis of what will come or could come with laws against abortion, written first before Trump's presidency and then with her read on the situation upcoming to the Supreme Court. There were only one or two small flaws. One is that a couple times, she mentions obesity without any real discussion of more general fatphobia. Second, I sometimes got mixed up in her double-negatives or refutations. But overall, this book was incredibly informative and fascinating.

Content warnings for miscarriage, sexual assault, fatphobia, trauma/medical trauma, misogyny, abuse.

[maudgonnegirl]

“We find no evidence that abortion hurts women. For every outcome we analyzed, women who received an abortion were either the same or, more frequently, better off than women who were denied an abortion. [...]

“We find many ways in which women were hurt by carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term. Continued pregnancy and childbirth is associated with large physical health risks, so great that two women in our study died from childbirth-related causes. Many others experienced complications from delivery and, extending over the next five years, increased chronic head and joint pain, hypertension, and poorer self-rated overall health. In the short run, women experienced increased anxiety and loss of life satisfaction after being denied an abortion, and those with violent partners found it difficult to extricate themselves after the birth. Over the next several years, women who were denied abortions experienced economic hardships not experienced by women who received their wanted abortions.

“Abortion opponents often accuse women seeking abortions of being misinformed, irresponsible, or amoral. In fact, as the Turnaway Study results make clear, women make thoughtful, well-considered decisions about whether to have an abortion. When asked why they want to end a pregnancy, women give specific and personal reasons. And their fears are borne out in the experiences of women who carry unwanted pregnancies to term. Women seeking abortions worry that they cannot afford to raise a baby, and we find that women denied abortions are more likely to live in poverty. They worry that their relationship isn’t strong enough to support a child, and we find that relationships with the man involved dissolve regardless of whether they carry the pregnancy to term or have an abortion. They worry about not being able to take care of their existing children, and we find evidence that women’s children do worse on several measures of health and development when women carry an unwanted pregnancy to term than when they receive an abortion. The Turnaway Study brings powerful evidence about the ability of women to foresee consequences and make decisions that are best for their lives and families.”

- Diana Greene Foster, PhD, The Turnaway Study:  Ten Years, a Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having—or Being Denied—an Abortion  

[iirulancorrino]

Diana Greene Foster, The Turnaway Study: The Cost of Denying Women Access to Abortion

[iirulancorrino]

Diana Greene Foster, The Turnaway Study: The Cost of Denying Women Access to Abortion

[maudgonnegirl]

So what would happen if the right to abortion was no longer guaranteed at the federal level? One scenario is that decisions about whether and when abortion is legal would revert to the states. Some states would ban it and others would protect it. If this happens, women with resources who live in states with bans would be able to travel to states without bans. For women who travel, abortion would cost more, take more time, and be more stigmatized. But they would get their abortions. Women with internet savvy would likely order pills online. […] Already there are women in the United States who have gone to jail for using on their own—or providing to their daughter—the same pills they can legally be given in abortion clinics. So I anticipate there would be an increase in prosecutions of women in some states for doing something that may be legal in other states. Some women might do extremely dangerous things—like drink toxic substances, insert foreign objects into their uterus, or have someone punch them in the abdomen—to end their pregnancies. […]

Finally, if Roe were overturned and legality reverted to the states, the Turnaway Study suggests that a large fraction of women (my estimate: between a quarter and a third) would carry unwanted pregnancies to term. […] And for those women, all the burdens outlined in this book—worse physical health, reduced life aspirations, higher exposure to domestic violence, increased poverty, lowered chance of having a wanted pregnancy, worse outcomes for their other children—will result.

[...] Roe and Casey say that abortion has to be made available before viability. If Roe falls, then there won’t be anything to stop Congress, if it had the votes, from passing a nationwide 20-week ban. Or even a nationwide six-week ban. Or a total ban. It seems unlikely that people who believe abortion is murder would be content to say, okay, murder is illegal in my state; I’ll just let other women in other states make their own decisions. If this sort of laissez-faire, let-others-decide-for-themselves attitude were feasible, they wouldn’t have to change any laws at all. […] The end of Roe could cause a cascade. Some states would pass laws that make abortion illegal or begin enforcing laws that are already on the books but aren’t in effect because of Roe. Other states would pass laws protecting abortion rights or even try to expand access with proactive laws that increase affordability and the number of providers. This patchwork scenario would likely prompt anti-abortion activists and legislators to push for nationwide bans that, if passed, would mean that women would have nowhere legal to go in the United States.

- Diana Greene Foster, PhD, The Turnaway Study:  Ten Years, a Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having—or Being Denied—an Abortion  

[iirulancorrino]

from The Turnaway Study: The Cost of Denying Women Access to Abortion by Diana Greene Foster

This is just so evil and also a prime example of how much the pro-life movement relies on coercion and outright denial of healthcare to women.

[iirulancorrino]

Diana Greene Foster, The Turnaway Study: The Cost of Denying Women Access to Abortion