#turnaway study

So I quoted the data wrong, it's actually 96% of women denied abortion reported not wishing they'd had one five years later. Sorry about that, I've corrected the post and changed the link.

Look on page 126 of the Turnaway Study book:

4% responded "yes" or "don't know" when asked if they still wish they could have had an abortion. 100% - 4% = 96% responded "no", they did NOT still wish they could have had an abortion. Here's the specific study that statistic comes from, which used data from the Turnaway Study.

This year I read a lot of great books…but five blew me away. My top five of the year are:

✨There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib

✨Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia by Kate Manne

✨The City in Glass by Nghi Vo

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

✨Golem Girl: A Memoir by Riva Lehrer

I was most surprised that four of five of my favorites were nonfiction! I don’t know if I was biased towards nonfiction this year or if that’s just what wowed me this year, but these really are the five books I couldn’t stop thinking about.

Honorable Mention list:

The Gods Below by Andrea Stewart

Road to Ruin by Hana Lee

Blueback by Tim Winton

The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar (2025)

Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals by Saidya Hartman

Sailor Moon vol. 5 by Naoko Takeuchi tr. Alethea and Athena Nibley

The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman

Maybe He Just Likes You by Barbara Dee

Never a City So Real by Alex Kotlowitz

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Small Rain by Garth Greenwell

Jewel Box: Stories by E. Lily Yu

Who’s Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler

Koala: A Natural History and an Uncertain Future by Danielle Clode

So one big problem with the study they linked in their article is they are using the data from the Turnaway study. They claim, "This analysis includes all 5 years (11 interview waves) of data from the Turnaway Study." I have already talked about the issues with the Turnaway Study. The scientific article below explains the many flaws of the Turnaway study:

The Turnaway Study, conducted by abortion advocates at thirty abortion clinics, reportedly proves that 95 percent of women have no regrets about their abortions and that abortion causes no mental health problems. But a new exposé reveals that the authors have misled the public, using an unrepresentative, highly biased sample and misleading questions. In fact, over two-thirds of the women approached at the abortion clinics refused to be interviewed, and half of those who agreed dropped out. Refusers and dropouts are known to have more postabortion problems. In fact, ANSIRH’s own data actually revealed that beyond this first week, the women denied an abortion who actually did carry to term had significant improvements in anxiety, depression, and self-esteem. Indeed, the researchers admitted that they could observe no significant differences between the groups. But this is only admitted in the details of the study, not the abstract, conclusions, or news releases. But ANSIRH’s spin how aborting women did as well as those who gave birth actually includes an admission most damaging to their own ideology. Specifically, ANSIRH’s own evidence suggests that there are no persistent mental health risks associated with women being denied an abortion. In other words, an equally valid headline would read: “Women Denied Abortions Face No Long-Term Mental-Health Problems.” That may help to explain why ANSIRH chose to elevate a single anxiety score accessed eight days after begin turned away from an abortion (including the anxiety of women still looking for an alternative place to get an abortion) into their misleading claim that women who are denied abortions may face more mental health problems than women who are provided abortions

For further evidence on the effect abortion has on mental health:

Women who had undergone an abortion experienced an 81% increased risk of mental health problems, and nearly 10% of the incidence of mental health problems was shown to be attributable to abortion. 

Ah yes, the Turnaway study. Most of what I have to say about that study can be found here:

A British science magazine, New Scientist, also noted that the Turnaway Study may be “biased” because only 38% of the women asked to participate in the study actually did, and the women who dropped out or did not participate may have been the ones who felt more negatively about their abortions.

Contrary to what the study claims, abortion regret is not rare. However, sometimes it takes years – even decades – before a woman begins coming to terms with her unborn baby’s abortion death.

A British survey in 2006 found that 82% of respondents said they deeply regretted their abortions. Of the 248 women who participated, only 26 said they had few or no regrets.

Numerous studies also link abortions to an increased risk of mental health problems, including a 2009 study from the University of Otago in New Zealand. More than 85% of women reported negative reactions to their abortions including sorrow, sadness, guilt, regret, grief and disappointment, according to the study.

Other studies indicate that post-abortive women are at a higher risk of suicide. One study published in the British Medical Journal in 2013 found that women who had abortions were seven times more likely to commit suicide than women who gave birth.

Lead author Professor David Fergusson, who described himself as a pro-choice atheist, also led the research team in a 2008 study that concluded that women who continued an unwanted or mistimed pregnancy did not experience a significant increase in mental health problems. Further, having an abortion did not reduce their mental health risks.

A 2011 study in the British Journal of Psychiatry found that 10% of mental health problems among women, including 35% of suicidal behaviors, may be attributable to abortion. Women who had abortions were 81% more likely to experience mental health problems compared to all other control groups, and 55% more likely to have problems compared to women who delivered an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy.

The increased risk of suicide following abortion has been recognized in Australia as well. A 2013 Queensland Maternal and Perinatal Quality Council report noted: “There appears to be a significant worldwide risk of maternal suicide following termination of pregnancy and, in fact, a higher risk than that following term delivery. The potential for depression and other mental health issues at this time needs to be better appreciated.”

The infamous Turnaway study is not as reliable as you think it is.

My New Year's Resolution this year was to finish all the books on my "to be read" list. Proud to announce that less than one week in, I have crossed my first book off the list!

The Turnaway Study describes a yearslong endeavor in which over a thousand women across the US were interviewed every six months about the consequences of whether they received or were denied an abortion. These women were either just below or just above the cutoff point in their state (study took place pre-overturning of Roe v. Wade), and tracked their life progress over the course of five years. The mix of personal narratives and data analysis is well balanced and makes for a compelling read for anyone interested in the real consequences of getting (or not getting) an abortion in America.

I want to generally avoid anything about politics on here but if anyone is interested in actual research about abortion outcomes this is interesting reading.  It’s legit research done on the long term outcomes of being denied an abortion or going through with one without just ‘assuming’ things like is commonly done or stated in legal opinions.