Current Affairs

In this, the second part of our look into the realities of abortion in the contemporary United States, Nathan talks to Prof. Diana Greene Foster, Director of Research at the Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) collaborative research group at UC-San Francisco. Prof. Foster is the author of the new book The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, a Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having―or Being Denied―an Abortion. The book is based on a remarkable study that followed a thousand women over a decade, some of whom had abortions and some of whom were denied abortions. The study compared life outcomes for the two groups and found that not only does having an abortion not cause lasting regret or harm, but not having a desired abortion creates a host of negative life outcomes. We also discuss: - How those who are denied abortions accurately predict the negative life consequences they will face from the denial - Why access to contraception is still a long way from being universal - How the need to qu