Podcast recap: Discussing the Turnaway Study with Economist Bryan Caplan
In December 2025, Professor Bryan Caplan (PhD, Economics) published the essay “The Tragic Hysteria of Abortion.” He talked about the lesser-known finding of the Turnaway Study: pretty much everyone who tried to get an abortion, couldn’t, and instead had a baby ended up saying they no longer wished they’d aborted. As Caplan put it:
Once they meet their babies, the vast majority of women denied abortions discover that they totally want their babies.
At Secular Pro-Life, we’ve had a lot of in-depth discussion of the Turnaway Study, especially regarding this often overlooked finding. It was a breath of fresh air seeing Caplan write an essay about it, so I reached out to tell him so. In response he asked me if I’d like to talk about this and other aspects of the study with him on his channel.
Caplan and I are both atheists, which made the conversation interesting given how often abortion dicussions get frames as purely religious disputes. You can watch/listen to the full episode here or read the summary below.
Key Takeaways
- The Turnaway Study’s results are much more nuanced than media summaries suggest.
- Human beings often unnecessarily catastrophize during crisis moments.
- Conversations about abortion frequently underestimate the role of social support.
Summary
“The study found what?”
The Turnaway Study is an influential body of research regarding abortion, cited endlessly in the media over the last decade. Caplan and I spent much of our conversation talking about the huge gap between what the study actually found versus how researchers and journalists summarize it and the public understands it.
For years, we heard only about the women who didn’t regret their abortions. But when I ordered the book summarizing all of the study’s findings, I was shocked to discover the researchers also found that women who couldn’t get abortions ultimately said they no longer wished they had aborted. Specifically, of the women who were denied abortion, gave birth, and raised their children themselves (as opposed to placing for adoption), 98% said they no longer wished they’d aborted. They cited bonding to their children as a major reason they looked back positively on the fact that they couldn’t get abortions.
These findings have been public for years, but still today few Turnaway proponents are aware of them. The disconnect is irritating. The Turnaway Study contains much more nuance than the public conversation about it would suggest. In addition to women generally being glad they couldn’t abort (!), some negative outcomes the researchers emphasized affected relatively small percentages of women, and many of the financial disadvantages diminished substantially (or disappeared entirely) over time. People should have a fuller understanding of what this research actually says, but the only findings that get coverage are those that support a narrative of abortion denial as grievous harm.
“Humans tend to be a little panicky when we have unexpected changes.”
When women face unintended pregnancy, they sometimes imagine worst-case scenarios about the future. Caplan appreciated how the Turnaway Study offers an opportunity to apply real world data to those concerns.
When people describe thinking about getting abortion, like if you’ve ever personally known anyone who’s in this situation, this is the way that they do it. And there’s a word that I really like, which is “catastrophizing.” Looking at a situation and then just letting your negative imagination run wild as to how bad it is. What’s great about books like the Turnaway Study is it’s like, “Well, are they right?”
Bryan Caplan, Reason and Abortion
Turnaway gives us a chance to say the research has found that women overwhelmingly aren’t sorry when they can’t abort. They do have more financial hardships initially, but those issues resolve over the coming years, and, compared to the women who aborted, those who couldn’t abort reported the same life satisfaction, as well as no differences in rates of depression, anxiety, PTSD, self-esteem, drug abuse, or alcohol abuse. There’s data to suggest unexpected pregnancy isn’t the trauma abortion proponents sometimes describe it as.
Caplan appreciated that Turnaway lets us say catastrophizing is usually an incorrect factual view of the situation. Stats and facts are relevant, but when someone is panicking, it’s also important to have relational conversation. I explained that, in my experience, one of the most helpful things we can do is let people talk through the fears running through their minds. Sometimes just speaking them out loud helps people realize the concerns may not be real assessments so much as shock and panic. After that, it helps to shift the conversation from the time frame of the next few months toward longer term: the next 5-10 years. What might life look like after adjusting to big changes?
Of course no approach, including this one, guarantees that a given person will decide there’s nothing to fear. But venting and then thinking longer term can sometimes help people move from crisis mode to thinking more clearly. Turnaway reinforces this idea, because many of the emotional changes among women denied abortions happened surprisingly quickly. Even just one week after abortion denial, already 35% of them said they no longer wished they’d aborted. We naturally react strongly to sudden, life-changing events, but those initial reactions often don’t accurately predict how we will feel in the long run.
“If she had just one person say ‘I got you,’ it could transform the whole thing.”
Caplan and I talked about what a game changer social support can be. People often focus on getting women considering abortion more financial support, and I’m all for that. But I think people underestimate how much social support – even without any major financial change – can be transformative.
I think something like a fourth to a third of the time, it’s women saying “Other people are telling me this baby will ruin their lives, and I need to take care of it.” The father, sometimes her own parents, if she’s young…
Monica Snyder, Reason and Abortion
Many women considering abortion feel alone. Sometimes if they have just one more person enthusiastically or determinedly in their corner, it can completely change how they view the pregnancy. This is especially true when that one person is the father, but it can also be true when it’s her mother, a close friend, or other key relationship.
If you listen to the full episode and have feedback, please tell us here.
Additional Resources
- The Overlooked Findings of the Turnaway Study
- “What kind of mothering do you expect?”
- Secular Pro-Life’s “Overlooked Findings of the Turnaway Study” presentation
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