ANSIRH News

Study finds abortion-related emergency department visits are extremely rare

We analyzed data from nearly 200 million emergency department (ED) visits between 2009 and 2013 by women of reproductive age and found that among all visits, only about 0.01% (1 in every 10,000) were abortion-related. Previous research on abortion-related ED visits has been conducted at the state level only; this study is the first to use this extensive data set to explore the topic on a national scale.

The Turnaway Study finds that abortion does not increase women’s risk of experiencing suicidal thoughts

New research from ANSIRH’s Turnaway Study found no evidence that women who have abortions are at higher risk of developing symptoms of suicidal ideation than women denied abortions. Women who sought abortion at later gestational ages were at no higher risk of having suicidal thoughts post-abortion seeking than those who sought abortion earlier in pregnancy. 

We found that having a history of mental health conditions, and intimate partner violence increased women’s risk of experiencing symptoms of suicidal ideation, not having an abortion.

Allowing pharmacists to dispense medication abortion on prescription could improve access to early abortion care

Despite the growing use of medications to induce termination of early pregnancy, pharmacist involvement in abortion care is currently limited in the U.S. The Food and Drug Administration’s Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) for Mifeprex® (mifepristone 200 mg) prohibits the dispensing of the drug on prescription at pharmacies. But, given its safety record, this dispensing restriction is not evidence-based and constrains access to medication abortion.

ANSIRH Update: April 2018

The latest ANSIRH Update, from April 2018. We are off to a very productive start to the year, with 14 peer-reviewed articles—four from the Turnaway Study alone. Our research was featured in 111 media articles from 67 media outlets, and we also published 5 op-eds and one New York Times letter to the editor. And Monica McLemore was not only named the Abortion Care Network (ACN) Person of the Year, but was also the star of billboards around the Bay Area for an ACN campaign that is challenging deceptive crisis pregnancy centers and so-called “abortion reversal” of medication abortion.