Behind the groundbreaking turnaway research, Diana Green Foster wanted to study the health and economic impacts of loss of abortion access.
by Shefari Rootla for The 19th
Diana Greene Foster is responsible for groundbreaking research into the impact of abortion access. This is a large-scale 10-year study that traced thousands of people who had or were denied abortions. but Funding for follow-up Her inventive turnaway research is just Part of the wave Cancelled Health Policy Research.
Foster received a MacArthur “Genius Grant” for turnaway research. Part of that study examined the effects of restrictions even before the collapse of Roev. Wadehelped shape the public’s understanding of how abortion access affects people’s health and economic well-being. Find those people Those who were denied abortion were more likely to experience years of poverty compared to those who could end an unplanned pregnancy.
Foster’s new study aimed to build on its research to track people seeking abortions, both inside and outside the health system after federal abortion rights ended, and those who worked for pregnancy in and out of the health system. National data shows that the number of abortions has increased since then. egg It has not investigated who still has access to care in the face of abortion bans and who has or cannot access it when they are unable to.
“It’s very likely that certain types of people are unlikely to be able to get an abortion, and I think it’s going to be too sick to cross the state line, and it’s a disease that’s what happens when you experience pregnancy complications and get too sick,” Foster wrote in an email until the 19th. “Some cases make newspapers, but only systematic research can tell you how often it occurs and help you understand how to quantify additional health risks in the law and reduce harm.”
This research began soon low Autumn using private donations. Foster spent the last two and a half years securing federal funds to expand her work. Her research took just six months to what was supposed to be a five-year grant when federal funds were withdrawn.
Already, the study was beginning to produce results. Foster’s team was trying to release data showing that in states with abortion bans people are more likely to seek an abortion than before or later. Perhaps the result of having to navigate new and troublesome limitations. Federal funding has expanded the number of people the study follows, allowing her team to better understand how the abortion ban has affected people with medically complex pregnancy, including those who need an abortion due to a medical emergency.
“Our research will rigorously examine how national abortion bans affect medical emergency treatment, including interviews with emergency department doctors across the United States, including premature prenatal rupture of the membrane, premature pulsatile abortion, and ectopic pregnancy,” Foster said. “This is a topic that desperately needs data.”
The future of that job is now uncertain. A letter from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) shared by Foster on the 19th said her research is no longer in line with federal goals.
The phrase appears in other letters sent to women and LGBTQ+ people who are primarily working-focused researchers, but even in jobs like Foster, it is not explicit about gender identity. NIH has cancelled funding for numerous studies related to gender, women and LGBTQ+ people. Threatening undercuts Decades of efforts to improve how scientific research considers gender.
Foster said her team was using less than $200,000 of the expected $2.5 million of NIH support that is expected to spread over five years. She said she intends to continue her research, but cancellation of their federal grant means that her team will not be able to pay for all the staff they need, including personnel to interview patients and doctors about their experience navigating abortion bans. That’s information from some states that have abortion bans – Texas, The largest states that ban procedures are not tracked.
“I’m raising my crazy funds to replace these cancelled funds,” she writes. “I would rather spend my time doing research rather than starting fundraising again.”
