ANSIRH Research Highlights 2019

Welcome to ANSIRH's accomplishments for 2019. We are proud to share our major achievements from the past year, including publications, media mentions, op-eds, awards, legal and legislative briefs, and other highlights.

Publications

In 2019, ANSIRH researchers contributed 68 peer-reviewed publications to the field, which appeared in some of the most respected journals of reproductive health, psychology, public health, and beyond.

Below is a list of links to summaries for selected 2019 publications. To access a full list of publications, visit our Journal Articles page.

• Abortion access:
  • Receiving versus being denied a wanted abortion is not associated with graduating or dropping out of school over five years
  • Study finds no evidence that having an abortion leads to negative health outcomes
  • CPCs and the effectiveness of interpersonal efforts to stigmatize abortion
• Abortion provision:
  • More U.S. obstetrician-gynecologists are providing abortion now than in 2009
  • Pharmacy workers in Nepal could expand abortion provision
  • Medical and midwifery students in Chile want their university to provide abortion training
• ​​Abortion onscreen:
  • Abortion on TV in 2019
  • Majority of TV abortion plotlines reinforce myths about the procedure
• Contraception:
  • The Desire to Avoid Pregnancy (DAP) scale
  • Contraceptive counseling should address multiple considerations, not just desire to avoid pregnancy
• Medication abortion:
  • There is no evidence to support abortion pill “reversal”
• Policy
  • Health websites should do a better job reflecting evidence about miscarriage
  • Women entering prenatal care report unmet need for social services
  • Impact of policies targeting alcohol use during pregnancy varies by race
  • Medicaid abortion restrictions are an insurmountable barrier
  • Policies targeting alcohol use in pregnancy harm instead of help
  • Policies to decrease alcohol use during pregnancy may not work as intended
  • CDC overestimates alcohol-exposed pregnancies
• Telemedicine
  • Performing informed consent visits through telemedicine reduces burdens of mandatory delay
  • Telemedicine reduces barriers to accessing medication abortion
  • Using Telemedicine for Mandatory Pre-Abortion Information Sessions Reduces Barriers to Abortion Care

Media articles featuring ANSIRH

In 2019, our work was featured in nearly 400 media articles – the highest number in a single year in the history of ANSIRH. A few highlights are listed below. Please see our website for a curated list of media articles.

• In first, California would require public universities to provide abortion pills​ (New York Times)
• Ohio bill suggests doctors who perform abortions could face jail, unless they perform a non-existent treatment​ (TIME)
• Providing 12 months of birth control pills at once is beneficial, new research says​ (USA Today)
• Women’s health worsened over 5 years after being denied an abortion, study says​ (Los Angeles Times)
• Following outcry, UCSF ends talks to expand partnership with Dignity Health​ (San Francisco Chronicle)​
• Facebook removed doctors' fact-check of false anti-abortion video because Ted Cruz complained​ (Salon)
• What to know about so-called "Late-term abortion"​ (Teen Vogue)​
• With abortion restrictions on the rise, some women iInduce their own​ (NPR)
• The FDA is restricting access to the easiest, safest form of abortion​ (VICE)
• Nearly half of women who have abortions live below the federal poverty level​ (MarketWatch)​
• As abortion access shrinks, people turn to imported pills​ (Bloomberg Law)
• Reproductive rights at risk with or without roe​ (American Prospect)
• Many women feel they were "Mistreated" & "threatened" during childbirth, new study reveals​ (Romper)

​Op-eds

In 2019 we placed 22 op-eds and one New York Times Letter-to-the-Editor (LTE). Titles and links are listed by author below.

• Daniel Grossman: Why 2020 presidential candidates should support over-the-counter access to abortion pills (USA Today), Facebook took down our fact-check on medically necessary abortions. That’s dangerous. (Washington Post), OTC Birth Control Pills: Answering Attacks on Access (Women's E-News), Ohio abortion, ectopic pregnancy bill: 'It's both bad medicine and bad law-making' (Cinncinnati Enquirer), Conservatives Are Perpetuating Dangerous Tropes About Patients Who Need Later Abortions (Rewire)
• Nancy Berglas: Why prenatal care providers should pay attention to abortion (The BMJ)
• Jackie Castellanos: Opinion: Why California public university students should have on-campus access to the ‘abortion pill’ (Los Angeles Times)
• Lori Freedman: Open Forum: Affiliation with Dignity Health is too risky for UCSF (San Francisco Chronicle)
• Steph Herold: From Ordinary to Extraordinary: Putting the “Shrill” Abortion Scene in Context (Ms. Magazine), The Abortion Storyline In 'The Letdown' Season 2 Is Different — We’ve Studied Them All (Romper)
• Carole Joffe: Supporters of abortion rights should be energized, not demoralized (Washington Post; with David S. Cohen), The Doctors Who Put Their Lives on the Line (New York Times; LTE), Remembering George Tiller and his vital legacy in American abortion history (The Guardian), Anti-Choice Activists Fighting a Losing Battle Against Medication Abortion (Rewire)
• Monica McLemore: To Prevent Women from Dying in Childbirth, First Stop Blaming Them, ;Open Forum: Nurses call on President Trump to rescind dangerous ‘gag’ rule on reproductive health care (San Francisco Chronicle), No Deal: Providers Sound Off on Trump’s Domestic Gag Rule (Ms. Magazine; with colleagues), If You Don't Want to Provide Abortions, Don't Go Into Healthcare (VICE)
• Sarah Roberts: Abortion laws must be based on science. The Louisiana law before the Supreme Court is not (Newsweek), Abortion doesn't have to be illegal to be out of reach (The American Prospect)
• Gretchen Sisson and Steph Herold: Beyond the Back Alley: “Call the Midwife” and TV’s Stubborn Abortion Binary (BitchMedia)
• Ushma Upadhyay: Abortion restrictions can harm women. Let's follow evidence, not ideology, in 2019 (USA Today)
• Katie Woodruff: Bans on public coverage for abortion are unjustified by science and outright harmful (The Hill)

Awards

In 2019, our faculty received an impressive number of awards celebrating their many professional achievements. Here are some highlights:

• Daniel Grossman received the Beacon of Science Award from The Society of Family Planning.
• Nancy Berglas won best poster from the Sexual and Reproductive Health section at the annual American Public Health Association (APHA) meeting.
• Monica McLemore received the UCSF Thomas N Burbridge Public Service Award, the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN) Excellence in Leadership award, and she was appointment as a Fellow to the American Academy of Nursing (AAN).
• Lauren Ralph won best poster at the Society of Family Planning.
• Corinne Rocca was senior author on a publication that won the Daniel R. Mishell, Jr, MD, Outstanding Article Award from the journal Contraception.
• Sarah Roberts received the Charles E. Gibbs Leadership Prize from Women’s Health Issues for best publication of 2019 and her appointment to the American Public Health Association (APHA) Science Board.
• Katie Woodruff won the award for best poster at the annual CityMatCH meeting.

Court Hearings and Legislative Briefings

Our faculty participated in a number of court hearings and legislative briefings in 2019. Here is a short list:

• Daniel Grossman served as an expert witness in Trust Women Foundation v. Bennett, a challenge to a ban on the use of telemedicine for medication abortion in Kansas.
• Daniel Grossman was an expert witness in Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region v. Mo. Dep’t of Health & Senior Services, an administrative hearing regarding the licensure of the last abortion clinic in Missouri.
• Daniel Grossman and Ushma Upadhyay testified on behalf of California SB24 the Collect Student Right to Access Act.
• Antonia Biggs provided rebuttal testimony for a case challenging Tennessee’s mandatory waiting period.
• Katrina Kimport was a rebuttal expert witness in Whole Woman’s Health Alliance v. Hill, which challenged several abortion restrictions already in place in Indiana.
• Monica McLemore provided Congressional testimony before the House Committee on Energy & Commerce on protecting Title X and safeguarding quality family planning care.
• Sarah Roberts and Molly Battistelli testified before the Illinois State Senate in a hearing related to the Illinois Reproductive Health Act.
• Ushma Upadhyay provided expert testimony for abortion cases in Idaho and Indiana.

Other highlights from 2019

In June, ANSIRH and the Bixby Center, together with other UCSF partners, organized a symposium entitled “Meeting the Needs of Patients Post Roe v. Wade,” bringing together leaders in reproductive health, rights, and justice to discuss how our community should respond to increasingly extreme abortion restrictions sweeping the country. Panelists discussed threats and opportunities related to abortion access and the role that UCSF can play as an academic medical center in a state with good policies. ANSIRH’s research and analysis on topics relevant to a post-Roe landscape, such as self-managed abortion and alternative provision of medication abortion, will continue into 2020.

In 2019, UCSF proposed an institutional partnership with Dignity Health, a Catholic-owned health care system that denies certain services based on religious directives. Dr. Lori Freedman and Dr Daniel Grossman spoke out against the proposal through public comments at meetings of the UC Regents. Dr. Freedman also authored a San Francisco Chronicle op-ed, citing her research on the ways care can be restricted at religiously-affiliated institutions and her concerns about how the partnership would affect UC patients and employees. While the proposed partnership with Dignity was dropped in May as a result of substantial public outcry, UCSF and other UC medical campuses continue to explore ways to partner with Catholic health systems to broaden their network. ANSIRH looks forward to sharing our research that is relevant to this discussion moving forward.

After a hard-fought campaign to bring medication abortion to student health centers on California’s public university campuses, on October 11th, Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 24, the College Right to Access Act, into law. ANSIRH’s research and testimony by Dr. Daniel Grossman and Dr. Ushma Upadhyay, on the barriers students face in accessing medication abortion and the feasibility of offering it on campus, provided critical evidence that helped pass this bill. ANSIRH will continue to provide input as the services are implemented at the university campuses.

On December 2nd, Dr. Sarah Roberts from ANSIRH helped lead the filing of an amicus brief of over 50 leading social scientists, urging the Supreme Court to reject Louisiana’s law requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at hospitals. The brief describes the extensive research on the safety of abortion, the harms of denying people a wanted abortion, and the negative impacts of the law. In anticipation of the oral argument before the Supreme Court on March 4, 2020, ANSIRH will be hosting a webinar for reporters on the impacts of this law, featuring patient, clinic, and research perspectives.

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