What happens when we deny people abortions? | Diana Greene Foster

Lesley Lisa Greene, 2022 | Explore

Diana’s sister, Lesley, has written a smart, funny and moving play about the study. This play is available to theater groups who want increase understanding of the importance of abortion access for people’s lives. This four-actor play tells the story of the study and the story of people who tried, and sometimes failed, to get a wanted abortion.

Diana Greene Foster | Science, 2022 | Article

More than a decade ago, social scientists launched an unprecedented study on abortion so that Supreme Court Justices and policymakers could base their decisions about abortion not on conjecture, but on hard science. What they found was staggering.

Lauren J. Ralph, Eleanor Bimla Schwarz, Daniel Grossman and Diana Greene Foster | Annals of Internal Medicine, 2019 | Article

A large body of medical research shows that abortion is physically safer than pregnancy, and “The Turnaway Study” findings verify this. Women who sought abortion but went on to give birth reported worse physical health years later than those who were able to get the abortion they sought.

M Antonia Biggs and Corinne Rocca | The BMJ, 2022 | Article

Far from harming women’s mental health, being able to get a wanted abortion is actually associated with better mental health outcomes in the short term than being forced to continue an unwanted pregnancy.

Sarah Miller, Laura R. Wherry and Diana Greene Foster | American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2023 | Article

Economists studied the financial and economic consequences of not being able to get a wanted abortion. They compared outcomes over a ten-year period for women who sought abortion just before and just after gestational age limits. Outcomes evolved similarly for the two groups prior to the unintended pregnancy. However, following abortion-seeking, women who were denied an abortion and went on to give birth experienced a large increase in financial distress that remained for several years.

Diana Greene Foster, Sarah E Raifman, Jessica D Gipson, et al. | The Journal of Pediatrics, 2019 | Article

When people can’t get a wanted abortion, it’s worse for their families, too. Children whose mothers were denied an abortion are more likely to grow up in poverty and miss their developmental milestones.