Study design

The Turnaway Study is a 5-year longitudinal study with a quasi-experimental design. Women were recruited from January 2008 to December 2010 from 30 abortion facilities throughout the US. We interviewed women regarding the health and development of their living children via telephone 1 week after seeking an abortion and semiannually for 5 years. We compare the youngest existing children younger than the age 5 years of women denied abortion because they presented for care beyond a facility's gestational limit (Turnaway group) with those of women who received the abortion (Abortion group). We used mixed-effects regression models to test for differences in outcomes of existing children of women in the Turnaway group (n = 55 children) compared with existing children of women in the Abortion group (n = 293 children).