Since our founding, the Bixby Center has been one of the few research institutions to address abortion, prioritizing the needs of people seeking care and the healthcare providers offering it. We have investigated social and clinical aspects of abortion care in the United States and globally.  

Although abortion access had long been inequitable under Roe v. Wade, the 2022 Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization opened the floodgates for states to ban abortion outright. Laws limiting abortion care have intensified in the years since, causing moral distress for healthcare providers and harms to people seeking care.

The Bixby Center is committed to ensuring that people get the abortion care they need and healthcare providers get evidence-based training. We advocate for policies that ensure equitable access to care.  

Clinical research to improve care

The Bixby Center is a leader in clinical research to develop methods of abortion and improve abortion care.

• Our research demonstrated the efficacy, safety, and acceptability of the combined use of mifepristone and misoprostol for early abortion.
• We have continued to lead clinical trials to improve abortion safety and access, including studying the provision of abortion care through different models such as medication abortion through telehealth and directly from a pharmacy.
• Our researchers are examining the kinds of abortion care women prefer, including in the context of pregnancy complications such as fetal anomalies.
• We have conducted numerous rigorous studies of the safety of abortion care, including in California and nationally, and for different types of care.
• We have documented a decline in maternal mortality after abortion legalization in Nepal and ongoing obstacles to obtaining care in Chile.
• Katherine Brown, MD, Jennifer Kerns, MD, and Jody Steinauer, MD, studied the rare complications of abortion and co-wrote guidelines for managing post-abortion hemorrhage.

Social science research to advocate for equity

Our social scientists have studied multiple aspects of how abortion care impacts people’s lives, livelihoods, and hopes for their futures.

• ANSIRH conducted rigorous studies to uncover the links between mental health and abortion.
• ANSIRH’s Turnaway Study examined the mental, emotional, physical, and socioeconomic consequences of abortion. They found no harms of abortion on health or wellbeing, but multiple harms associated with being denied an abortion.
• Katherine Brown, MD, explored Black women’s lived experiences of abortion and the interrelationship of race and abortion stigma.
• ANSIRH documents cultural narratives about abortion in film and television going back to the early 20^th century.

Evidence-based training for providers

Our extensive training programs are helping address the lack of abortion training and integration of family planning into medical education.

• Through the Ryan Residency Training program, we have increased the number of highly trained abortion providers nationwide. Post-Dobbs, we have helped ob-gyn residents in ban states arrange to learn essential abortion care skills in other states.
• Bixby leaders from family medicine, nursing, and midwifery are part of the Reproductive Health Service Corps consortium, an unprecedented California initiative to increase access to abortion training and diversify the reproductive healthcare workforce.  
• Through a Health Workforce Pilot Project, California’s law changed to allow advanced-practice clinicians to offer first-trimester abortion care, expanding the abortion care workforce.
• We continue to work toward integration of abortion into primary care training and practice.
• We led the establishment of the Ob-Gyn subspecialty in complex family planning, launching a nationwide program to train the next generation of highly expert providers. 

Advocating for equitable access

We use our evidence to advocate for better policies at the state and national levels.

• Researchers contributed to Supreme Court amicus briefs in Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt and Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
• Our members helped shape California’s Future of Abortion Council recommendations, preparing the state for the Dobbs decision. Members also testified in support of bills in the Council’s legislative package.  
• Bixby's research informed California law acknowledging that nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives, and physician assistants can safely perform early abortions. 
• As a medical student, Bixby Center Director Jody Steinauer, MD, founded Medical Students for Choice, a multinational organization that works to ensure that medical students and trainees are educated about all aspects of reproductive health care, including abortion.
• Our members frequently appear in the media to educate the public and policymakers about evidence-based, person-centered abortion care and the impacts of policies that restrict it.