Women of all faiths and across the faith spectrum turn to religious hospitals for their health care needs. However, many patients are unaware that these hospitals can restrict care, especially reproductive health care, due to religious objections.
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Welcome to the December 2017 ANSIRH Update. Here is a list of our major accomplishments, as well as recognition for those accomplishments, over the past year. This edition includes newly published research, media coverage, awards, our 15th anniversary events, and a look ahead to the coming year.
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This is the first study to analyze abortion portrayals on television from a genre framework, examining drama, soap opera, horror, science fiction, and comedy programs over the last 55 years. This analysis traces the history of abortion narratives in each of these genres, documenting themes related to the portrayal of abortion provision, decision-making, disclosure, and regulation. Abortion plotlines serve diverse purposes, reflecting and shaping the American public’s growing cultural understanding of abortion.
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Laws that require parental involvement in a minor’s decision to have an abortion are often promoted as a way to ensure positive family communication on abortion. In our study of the impact of Illinois’ parental notification law, we found that, although more minors involved a parent after the law went into effect, this did not translate into increased decision certainty for minors nor into increased parental support of that decision.
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Using chart data, we found that 38% of patients at a high volume abortion clinic accepted the offer of a printout. Drawing on interviews with patients, we further learned that women who accepted their pre-abortion ultrasound printout did so for a variety of reasons, including simply because it was offered to them, because they were curious about the printout, or because they considered taking the printout to be part of their process of confirming their abortion decision.
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In 2017, we identified 22 plotlines on American television where a character considers getting an abortion, and 11 plotlines where they actually do obtain one. New trends that we noted in 2015 and 2016 have continued.
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All forms of prescription contraception have potential side effects and clinicians can’t predict which patients will experience them. So how do clinicians help patients navigate this uncertainty in choosing a contraceptive method? Occidental College’s Krystale Littlejohn and ANSIRH’s Katrina Kimport find that how clinicians discuss the uncertainty of side effects doesn't always match what the scientific literature says about their likelihood.
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A study by the Guttmacher Institute found that the abortion rate dropped by 25 percent between 2008 and 2014. A new commentary by Dr. Diana Greene Foster in the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) discusses possible reasons for the decrease and questions the public health implications of these findings.
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Adopting a form of contraception just after having an abortion is considered safe for most women. In a new study titled, “Role of Insurance Coverage in Contraceptive Use after Abortion,” published in Obstetrics and Gynecology, we found that women with access to Medicaid-funded abortions are nearly four times as likely to adopt a contraceptive method on the day of the procedure as women who self-pay for their procedure.
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ANSIRH Director of Research, Diana Greene Foster, received the 2017 Robert A. Hatcher Family Planning Mentor Award by the Society of Family Planning at this year’s North American Forum on Family Planning. Read a transcript of Dr. Foster’s acceptance speech and join us in congratulating her for receiving this outstanding award.
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ANSIRH is a program within the UCSF Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health and is a part of UCSF's Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences.
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