A different look at the issue of abortion and reproductive health,,,
For the last decade or so, Tracy Weitz has been one of the most prominent abortion researchers in the United States.
As director of the University of California at San Francisco’s Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH), part of the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health, she has co-authored seven studies in major journals in the past year alone, on topics ranging from how low-income women pay for abortions to why some women who want an abortion delay until it is too late.
NM: As researchers, what kind of hurdles and antagonism do you face?
TW: There’s definitely a difference between the social scientists who do the research and the MDs who actually do abortions. Abortion doctors have had assassinations, barricades and constant protesters. As researchers, our safety hasn’t really been in question.
Most of the harassment comes at the level of trying to discount our academic reputation — suggesting that anyone who does abortion-related research who believes that abortion should be legal shouldn’t be trusted. That somehow our science is tainted, that we haven’t used good methods. That’s why we have a strong interest in being published in the peer-reviewed literature. We think that the science should be open to scrutiny. It should be put through the same kind of rigor that other clinical or social research is.
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NM: What has been your most eye-opening finding?
TW: The study has really exposed how hard it is to be a parent in this country. It is a huge economic investment. And if you don’t have the economic resources to be a parent, there’s nothing to help you.
Data from the study is also helping to answer other questions for which we have no good research until now — for example, how women feel about mandatory ultrasounds before an abortion and what factors contribute to some women feeling regret afterwards.
Prominent abortion researcher: We face our own harrassment - Salon.com
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