May 17, 2022 02:48 PM
A landmark study tracks the lasting effect of having an abortion — or being denied one
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shot...ing-denied
INTRO: Though it's impossible to know exactly what will happen to abortion access if Roe v. Wade is overturned, demographer Diana Greene Foster does know what happens when someone is denied an abortion. She documented it in her groundbreaking yearslong research project, The Turnaway Study and her findings provide insight into the ways getting an abortion – or being denied one – affects a person's mental health and economic wellbeing.
For over 10 years, Dr. Foster and her team of researchers tracked the experiences of women who'd received abortions or who had been denied them because of clinic policies on gestational age limits.
The research team regularly interviewed each of nearly 1,000 women for five years and found those who'd been denied abortion experienced worse economic and mental health outcomes than the cohort that received care. And 95% of study participants who received an abortion said they made the right decision.
The idea for the Turnaway Study emerged from a 2007 Supreme Court abortion case, Gonzales v. Carhart. In the majority opinion upholding a ban on a specific procedure used rarely in later abortions, Justice Anthony Kennedy speculated that abortions led to poor mental health. "While we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon, it seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained," he wrote. "Severe depression and loss of esteem can follow."
Dr. Diana Greene Foster is the lead researcher on the interdisciplinary team behind The Turnaway Study.
Kennedy's speculation — and admitted lack of evidence — captured Foster's attention, "because you can't make policy based on assumptions of what seems reasonable without talking to a representative sample of people who actually wanted an abortion," she said. The Turnaway Study fact-checked the justice's guess, finding that not having a wanted abortion was more likely to lead to the mental health outcomes he'd described than having one.
The study concluded in 2016, and didn't assess the effects of existing abortion restrictions on patients, or anticipate a future in which Roe v. Wade is overturned. It also didn't address the experiences of transgender and nonbinary people seeking abortion care, who Foster suspects may face even more significant access barriers than the women who were turned away.
Foster spoke with NPR's Short Wave about the study and its relevance today. This interview has been edited for length and clarity... (MORE - details, interview)
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5 lies the left spreads about overturning Roe and how to counter them
https://thefederalist.com/2022/05/16/5-l...nter-them/
INTRO: The pro-abortion machine has been working overtime to churn out lies about preborn babies and laws designed to protect them. Just Wednesday, after a bipartisan majority in the U.S. Senate defeated the legislature’s most radical abortion bill in history, pro-aborts on Capitol Hill and in the corporate media were declaring that “Republicans” (in fact a bipartisan majority that included Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin) had used the “filibuster” (rather than a simple 51-49 vote) to defeat the bill.
The lying started more than 50 years ago with Norma McCorvey of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. McCorvey later admitted “she had fabricated her account of being raped by three men and a woman in 1969 because she had hoped to circumvent a 100-year-old Texas law that banned abortions except when the woman’s life was in danger,” as The New York Times reported.
Here are five of many more Roe lies to be aware of, along with ways to counter them... (MORE - details)
COVERED:
1. Reversing Roe Will Put Women in Jail for Abortions
2. Women Will be Prosecuted for Self-Abortion if Roe Is Reversed
3. Women Will be Prosecuted for Miscarriage
4. Reversing Roe Will Criminalize Pill and IUD Use
5. ‘The Unborn Have Never Been Recognized in the Law as Persons’
Netflix is proof Americans have had enough of woke speech policing
https://nypost.com/2022/05/15/netflix-sh...-policing/
INTRO (Karol Markowiczs): We’re finally getting to a point where Americans have had enough of woke speech policing and censorship. Someone just needs to tell the Biden administration.
Last week, Netflix issued a long memo detailing the company culture it hopes to foster: The streaming service lays out that it produces a variety of content and won’t allow its employees to cut programming.
Netflix lets “viewers decide what’s appropriate for them, versus having Netflix censor specific artists or voices.”
And if the employee doesn’t like it, there’s the door. “Depending on your role, you may need to work on titles you perceive to be harmful. If you’d find it hard to support our content breadth, Netflix may not be the best place for you.” Netflix employees famously protested Dave Chappelle’s stand-up comedy special last year.
The Netflix memo made news because it’s now seen as bold to stand up for free speech and open discourse. It seems so novel, letting viewers, and not 23-year-old gender-studies majors in their first job, pick what to watch.
The “Words are violence” crowd had been winning for so long that it seemed inevitable their conformist demands would continue to be met.
The Netflix logo is seen on their office in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S. July 16, 2018.
Over the weekend, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot was in Houston and posted a picture of herself reading “To Kill a Mockingbird,” adding, “In Texas, reading any damn book I choose. No banning of books or thought. Ever.”
The irony is that it’s Lightfoot’s own progressives in places like Seattle and Burbank, not righties in Texas, who want to ban Harper Lee’s classic for racial slurs and a “white savior” character.
But the fact that someone as ultra-left as Lightfoot finally realizes that we shouldn’t be shutting down “thought” is a step forward for our culture... (MORE - details)
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shot...ing-denied
INTRO: Though it's impossible to know exactly what will happen to abortion access if Roe v. Wade is overturned, demographer Diana Greene Foster does know what happens when someone is denied an abortion. She documented it in her groundbreaking yearslong research project, The Turnaway Study and her findings provide insight into the ways getting an abortion – or being denied one – affects a person's mental health and economic wellbeing.
For over 10 years, Dr. Foster and her team of researchers tracked the experiences of women who'd received abortions or who had been denied them because of clinic policies on gestational age limits.
The research team regularly interviewed each of nearly 1,000 women for five years and found those who'd been denied abortion experienced worse economic and mental health outcomes than the cohort that received care. And 95% of study participants who received an abortion said they made the right decision.
The idea for the Turnaway Study emerged from a 2007 Supreme Court abortion case, Gonzales v. Carhart. In the majority opinion upholding a ban on a specific procedure used rarely in later abortions, Justice Anthony Kennedy speculated that abortions led to poor mental health. "While we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon, it seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained," he wrote. "Severe depression and loss of esteem can follow."
Dr. Diana Greene Foster is the lead researcher on the interdisciplinary team behind The Turnaway Study.
Kennedy's speculation — and admitted lack of evidence — captured Foster's attention, "because you can't make policy based on assumptions of what seems reasonable without talking to a representative sample of people who actually wanted an abortion," she said. The Turnaway Study fact-checked the justice's guess, finding that not having a wanted abortion was more likely to lead to the mental health outcomes he'd described than having one.
The study concluded in 2016, and didn't assess the effects of existing abortion restrictions on patients, or anticipate a future in which Roe v. Wade is overturned. It also didn't address the experiences of transgender and nonbinary people seeking abortion care, who Foster suspects may face even more significant access barriers than the women who were turned away.
Foster spoke with NPR's Short Wave about the study and its relevance today. This interview has been edited for length and clarity... (MORE - details, interview)
- - - - - - -
5 lies the left spreads about overturning Roe and how to counter them
https://thefederalist.com/2022/05/16/5-l...nter-them/
INTRO: The pro-abortion machine has been working overtime to churn out lies about preborn babies and laws designed to protect them. Just Wednesday, after a bipartisan majority in the U.S. Senate defeated the legislature’s most radical abortion bill in history, pro-aborts on Capitol Hill and in the corporate media were declaring that “Republicans” (in fact a bipartisan majority that included Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin) had used the “filibuster” (rather than a simple 51-49 vote) to defeat the bill.
The lying started more than 50 years ago with Norma McCorvey of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. McCorvey later admitted “she had fabricated her account of being raped by three men and a woman in 1969 because she had hoped to circumvent a 100-year-old Texas law that banned abortions except when the woman’s life was in danger,” as The New York Times reported.
Here are five of many more Roe lies to be aware of, along with ways to counter them... (MORE - details)
COVERED:
1. Reversing Roe Will Put Women in Jail for Abortions
2. Women Will be Prosecuted for Self-Abortion if Roe Is Reversed
3. Women Will be Prosecuted for Miscarriage
4. Reversing Roe Will Criminalize Pill and IUD Use
5. ‘The Unborn Have Never Been Recognized in the Law as Persons’
Netflix is proof Americans have had enough of woke speech policing
https://nypost.com/2022/05/15/netflix-sh...-policing/
INTRO (Karol Markowiczs): We’re finally getting to a point where Americans have had enough of woke speech policing and censorship. Someone just needs to tell the Biden administration.
Last week, Netflix issued a long memo detailing the company culture it hopes to foster: The streaming service lays out that it produces a variety of content and won’t allow its employees to cut programming.
Netflix lets “viewers decide what’s appropriate for them, versus having Netflix censor specific artists or voices.”
And if the employee doesn’t like it, there’s the door. “Depending on your role, you may need to work on titles you perceive to be harmful. If you’d find it hard to support our content breadth, Netflix may not be the best place for you.” Netflix employees famously protested Dave Chappelle’s stand-up comedy special last year.
The Netflix memo made news because it’s now seen as bold to stand up for free speech and open discourse. It seems so novel, letting viewers, and not 23-year-old gender-studies majors in their first job, pick what to watch.
The “Words are violence” crowd had been winning for so long that it seemed inevitable their conformist demands would continue to be met.
The Netflix logo is seen on their office in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S. July 16, 2018.
Over the weekend, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot was in Houston and posted a picture of herself reading “To Kill a Mockingbird,” adding, “In Texas, reading any damn book I choose. No banning of books or thought. Ever.”
The irony is that it’s Lightfoot’s own progressives in places like Seattle and Burbank, not righties in Texas, who want to ban Harper Lee’s classic for racial slurs and a “white savior” character.
But the fact that someone as ultra-left as Lightfoot finally realizes that we shouldn’t be shutting down “thought” is a step forward for our culture... (MORE - details)