Annual Report 2017-2018 > Cutting edge research
Our 5-year Turnaway Study is the most authoritative source on the impact of abortion on women and their families. This year we published results showing:
- Being denied a wanted abortion resulted in 4x higher odds that a woman’s household income was below the federal poverty level.
- Having an abortion did not lead to mental health problems, increased alcohol, tobacco or drug use, or to suicidal thoughts.
Other research includes:
- Among 50,000 abortions, we found no difference in abortion-related complications between abortions provided in ambulatory surgical centers and office-based settings.
- The first study to comprehensively explore birth support in Kenya showed that 65% of women would want a companion with them during labor for a future baby.
- 81% of women wanted to know ahead of time that Catholic hospitals restrict access to certain reproductive health care.
- Black women who lived in the least privileged zip codes of California had higher than a 25% chance of having a preterm birth compared with those who lived in the most privileged zip codes.
- Four questions comprise the first tool to assess the quality of contraceptive counseling from a patient’s perspective.
