The Turnaway Study by Diana Greene Foster

Author:Diana Greene Foster
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2020-06-02T00:00:00+00:00

Melissa, a white woman from Georgia, was 26 years old and 13 weeks pregnant when she had an abortion.

CHAPTER 7 Children

Women’s lives—their mental and physical health, their aspirations and economic security—are not the only lives affected by the ability to access abortion care. Nationally and in the Turnaway Study, more than half of the women having abortions are mothers, and their desire to care for the children they already have is a leading reason for aborting a pregnancy. Their unwanted pregnancies sometimes come too soon after a previous birth, or risk upsetting the tenuous day-to-day balance of caring for young children. In addition to the many women who are already raising children, there are women who want very much to become mothers in the future but aren’t yet ready to nurture and support a child. For these reasons, you may not be surprised to learn that receiving versus being denied a wanted abortion can have consequences for children—those already born at the time of the unwanted pregnancy; those born because of an unwanted pregnancy; and those yet to be born from a future, potentially more wanted pregnancy. Being denied an abortion negatively affects the development and financial security of one’s existing children, the emotional tie to the child born from that pregnancy, and the chance of having a more desired pregnancy later.

There are people who believe that pregnancy is a punishment, the price to be paid for having sex or for failing to use contraception.1 For people who think that pregnancy is a punishment for carelessness or promiscuity and that women should not be able to use abortion to skirt the consequences, these next results are particularly important. We’ve already documented the physical, economic, and social hardships faced by women who were denied an abortion. This chapter shows the measurable negative effects on their children as well.

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