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Play is based on a UCSF study that some scholars say is deeply flawed

The University of California San Francisco recently hosted a play “about what really happens when people are denied access to abortion,” centered around a widely cited study from its own abortion research program.

The “Turnaway Play” is based on a study of the same name published by scholars at the UCSF Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health. Its producers hope to host future performances in all 50 states.

However, some scholars and pro-life activists have criticized the study as flawed, and say certain findings in the research that do not reflect as well on abortion get underemphasized.

Lesley Greene, the author of the play, told The College Fix that the performance follows characters who are based on the researchers and women who participated in the study.

“The play is inspired and informed by the groundbreaking Turnaway Study, conducted by Dr. Diana Greene Foster, a 2023 MacArthur Fellow and researcher at the University of California, San Francisco (and my sister),” she said in a recent email.

The goal “is to stimulate conversations about the consequences of abortion restrictions, raise awareness about state ballot measures, and mobilize audiences to advocate for improved access to abortion. And to have readings of the play in all 50 states!” Greene told The Fix.

UCSF hosted a performance on April 6. The play website also has a form encouraging others to host a performance in their community.

Several other schools already have, including Duke University, Ithaca College, the University of Cincinnati, and Georgetown University, a Catholic institution, according to the play website.

“The play uses the words and experiences of these real people to bust myths and reduce abortion stigma,” Greene told The Fix. “There is also audience participation and plenty of humor.”

She said her sister and the ANSIRH research team followed 1,000 women for five years to study what women face when being denied an abortion.

“The main finding … is that receiving an abortion does not harm the health and wellbeing of women, but in fact, being denied an abortion results in worse financial, health and family outcomes,” Greene said.

According to the findings, women who were refused abortions were “more likely to stay in contact with a violent partner” and more likely to be struggling financially several years afterward.

While the study has received wide-spread media attention for years, some scholars have said the research includes significant flaws.

A paper by Bowling Green State University Professor Priscilla Coleman described the study as flawed. According to her research, it did not adhere to basic scientific procedures and prevented talk about the potentially harmful effects of abortion on women’s health, The Fix reported previously.

Monica Snyder, executive director at Secular Pro-Life, also expressed concerns about the public’s perception of the study in an email to The Fix. Although Snyder has not seen the play, she said the study itself has had “quite a lot of impact” on the abortion debate.

“The asymmetric coverage of the Turnaway Study has oversimplified cultural discussion about abortion, leading the public to believe abortion denial is subjugation and abortion is liberation,” she said.

Snyder, who often brings up the research when she speaks on college campuses, said the result has been more “misunderstanding and stigma regarding women who choose to carry our pregnancies in difficult circumstances, including women who do not want abortions even while in abusive relationships, in poverty, or after receiving adverse prenatal diagnoses.”

She said the study is widely touted for finding that women who are refused abortions struggle in many ways.

However, the same research “also found that women who give birth after being unable to abort end up saying they no longer wish they’d aborted,” Snyder told The Fix.

“By the end of the study period, 98% of women who birthed and raised their children (as opposed to placing for adoption) said they no longer wished they’d aborted, and cited bonding to their children as a major reason for their positive retrospective evaluations of their abortion denial,” she said.

However, these findings often get “overlooked” in the news articles that cite the study, she said. The ANSIRH website does not mention them either, she said.

Snyder wondered “if the play includes any acknowledgment of women who couldn’t get abortions and were ultimately happy they didn’t.”

When she speaks about the study college campuses, Snyder said her key points are that “the ethical conclusions and policy preferences people derive from the study are based on glaringly incomplete information. I’d like people to consider why the Turnaway Study’s researchers would discuss some findings so much more often than others.”

MORE: Economics professors say abortion is beneficial because it reduces black birth rates

IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: Actors in ‘The Turnaway Play’ share a hat with condoms hanging around the brim. The Turnaway Play

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