The Research and Reality of Abortion
This week’s guest is Rana Barar. She is a public health professional, a mom, and an avid traveler. She is the Project Director at Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) at the University of California, San Francisco. She oversaw several research studies, including the landmark Turnaway Study which looked at the effects of abortion and its alternative – carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term – on women’s lives.
The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, a Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having―or Being Denied―an Abortion
Rana’s We Testify Story: https://wetestify.org/author/rana-barar/
ReWire published article: Years After My Abortion
Show Notes:
0:57 ReWire Publication Bonus Podcast Years After My Abortion
2:09 Rana’s Introduction
2:43 The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, a Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having―or Being Denied―an Abortion
5:59 “Women are really the experts in their own lives”
6:16 “Looking at questions of access to medication abortion”
7:13 “Husband was in the process of getting a vasectomy when we got pregnant”
7:46 “For us it was an easy decision at the time, we had teenage kids and I knew that another baby would wreak havoc”
9:06 “Many women like me decide not to have another baby for the sake of their existing children”
9:26 Having a relationship with a “baby” who is not here
10:55 “Oftentimes what we hear from women is that they made the choice for that baby”
11:22 “People who are faced with this decision… are not doing it flippantly”
12:09 “... they think about the context of their lives and do the right thing for their lives at the time”
13:13 “Women are resilient… mental health rarely seems to suffer”
14:44 Diana Greene on Fresh Air
15:10 Feelings after abortion level out at 50/50, part of the human experience
16:31 This is hard and it also gave you the freedom you wanted; life is all the things, all the time
16:52 All the feelings can co-exist
17:24 Bioethicist Katie Watson- Scarlet A: The Ethics, Law, and Politics of Ordinary Abortion,
17:34 “The dignity of risk… there’s nothing about love that isn’t about risk”
19:03 95% of people overall say abortion was the right decision for them
20:04 The “attempt to control, doesn’t exist for making decisions in other healthcare”
21:02 We make the absolute perfect choice for the situation we are in, and we would make it again and again
22:42 “It’s OK to wonder” Your wonder does not mean anything has gone wrong
24:39 How does someone stumble into abortion research
26:12 “Now people can end their pregnancies with medication” but some places where it’s hard to get botched abortion ends in maternal mortality
27:49 This research was very grounded in women’s experiences
28:28 “Dispelling the myth that abortion harms women” and then my argument- hehe
37:32 Loretta Ross
