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This year the Common Reading selection is part of a suite of recommended readings associated with the activities sponsored by the Center for the Study of Women and Society, which during the academic year 2023-2024 will be celebrating its 50th anniversary with speakers, symposia, exhibits, performances, and more programming that speak to the theme of “Feminist Futures: Research on Women and Gender.” You can see the full list of the CSWS's activities here. This guide focuses on The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, A Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having -- or Being Denied -- an Abortion, by Diana Green Foster.
The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, A Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having--or Being Denied--an Abortion by
Alternative Subtitle: The Cost of Denying Women Access to Abortion
"This is a book about scientific research. But because the research subject is abortion, it is also a book about politics, policy, and the lives of women and children. As a scientist, I realize that science will never resolve the moral question of when a fetus becomes a person, nor will it answer the legal question of when, if ever, the rights of a fetus should outweigh those of the person whose body carries it. But our moral and legal opinions should be based on an accurate understanding of our world. And lack of data severely hampers our understanding of abortion. The Turnaway Study offers a unique opportunity to examine the effect of abortion on women’s lives, and the immediate and far-reaching consequences of laws that restrict access to it."
Diana Greene Foster is a professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences and director of research at Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH). An internationally recognized expert on women's experiences with contraception and abortion, she is the principal investigator of the Turnaway Study. She has a bachelor's of science from the University of California, Berkeley, and a doctorate from Princeton University. She lives with her husband and two children in the San Francisco Bay Area.
"I use the word 'women' to describe the participants in the study. Some people who are assigned female at birth and later identify as male or nonbinary also experience unintended pregnancy and seek abortion care. However, our consent form specified that the target study population was pregnant women, and, to my knowledge, no trans men participated. Many of the issues I identify would likely resonate with trans men and nonbinary people who become pregnant. All the additional ways in which being a trans man makes access to reproductive health care more difficult are not captured by this study but are important topics for future research. I use the more accurate word “people” to describe those who get abortions outside the study. However, I believe that the reason that contraceptives are so difficult to get, decision-making ability is doubted, and politicians feel they can weigh in on the most fundamental of decisions about one’s body is precisely because the vast majority of people needing abortions are women. Sometimes, I use the word “women” rather than the more inclusive “people who need abortions” to highlight the misogyny and root cause of the problem." (Foster, 2020).
Foster, Diana Greene. The Turnaway Study : The Cost of Denying Women Access to Abortion, Scribner, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uoregon/detail.action?docID=6199332.
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