About
The Turnaway Play is about what happens when people are denied access to abortion.
The play is inspired and informed by the groundbreaking Turnaway Study, conducted by Dr. Diana Greene Foster, a 2023 MacArthur Fellow and researcher at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Foster followed 1,000 women from across the country for five years and obtained the first scientific results on the consequences people face when either having or being denied an abortion. The main finding of the Turnaway Study is that receiving an abortion does not harm the health and wellbeing of women, but in fact, being denied an abortion results in worse financial, health and family outcomes.
The Turnaway Play received its professional premiere in May 2024 at the Kitchen Theatre Company in Ithaca, NY, directed by artistic director Rachel Lampert. Readings of the play have taken place across the country—nearly 50 as of December 2025, with more in the works.
Characters in the play are based on Turnaway Study subjects and members of the research team. The play uses the words and experiences of these real people to bust myths and reduce abortion stigma. Drama, humor, and audience participation make it an engaging and thought-provoking theatrical event.
The script, slides and lots of helpful supplemental material are available FOR FREE to theaters, students and advocates across the country. The play can be performed with four, seven or ten actors and can be held in homes, theaters, community centers, or classrooms.
Hosting a reading of The Turnaway Play can engage local communities to:
ORGANIZE people for change
EDUCATE about the science
CREATE CONVERSATION across groups; and
TAKE ACTION to expand and protect reproductive rights
Join us and make a difference in your community and future generations.
If you need support, don’t hesitate to reach out to us.
The Team
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Lesley is a theater artist and event producer. Her credits include work as a playwright, composer, sound designer, and director. She is co-director of Story House Ithaca, an organization that brings people together to share, study, create, and enjoy stories in all their forms. She co-founded and continues to be an organizer of Porchfest, a festival that began in Ithaca in 2007 and now takes place in more than 225 cities across North America. She worked for over twenty years at the Kitchen Theatre Company, working on dozens of productions in various capacities and helping to grow the organization. Lesley is the 2023-2024 winner of the Debra S. Newman ‘02 Cornell Tradition Community Service Award.
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Diana is a professor at the University of California, San Francisco. She is a demographer who uses quantitative models and analyses to evaluate the effectiveness of family planning policies and the effect of unwanted pregnancy on people’s lives. She led the Turnaway Study, a nationwide longitudinal prospective study of the health and well-being of women who seek abortion including both women who do and do not receive the abortion. Dr. Foster’s work has demonstrated the effect of subsidized contraceptives and dispensing a one year supply of contraception in reducing the incidence of unintended pregnancy. She is the author of over 120 scientific papers as well as the 2020 Scribner book, The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, a Thousand Women and the Consequences of Having – or Being Denied – an Abortion. She did a TED talk in October 2023 that has been viewed over 400,000 times since its release in January 2024. She is currently collaborating with scientists on a Nepal Turnaway Study and with scientists from across the country on a study of the health, legal and economic consequences of the end of Roe. In 2021, she received the Harriet B. Presser Award for sustained research contributions to the study of gender and demography from the Population Association of America. She was named a 2023 MacArthur Foundation fellow and one of ten people who shaped science in 2022 by the journal Nature. Dr. Foster received her undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley, her MA and PhD in Demography and Public Policy from Princeton University.
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Annabel Sheinberg spent the last 15 years in the fight for reproductive rights and health in Utah - She served as the VP for External Affairs for Planned Parenthood Action Council of Utah and Planned Parenthood Association of Utah. Her areas of focus include sex education, advocacy, organizing and development. She has been engaged in community and youth development work for her entire career beginning in large urban settings and for the last 25 years in the Mountain West. Sheinberg received awards from PPFA for Community Education and Excellence in Diversity and Equity for an anti- bullying/anti harassment program that trained educators in Utah. She is deeply committed to developing the next generation of diverse, insightful, and impactful movement leaders.
Dr. Diana Greene-Foster and her research team at UCSF conducted the Turnaway Study from 2008 to 2018. In the study, they tracked 1,000 women who wanted to get an abortion. Of the 1,000 women in the study, three quarters were able to have abortions and one quarter were “turned away”.
The study compared patients who received abortions with those who were turned away at similar points in their pregnancy. Study participants were interviewed every six months about their mental and physical health, education attainment, employment, economic situation, social support, and relationships.
The main finding of The Turnaway Study is that women who are turned away from getting their abortions endure far more negative and damaging life consequences than those who are able to exercise bodily autonomy.
You can learn more about Dr. Foster and her role at Advancing New Standards for Reproductive Health (ANSIRH), watch her popular 2024 TED Talk, or read her book The Turnaway Study: Ten Years a Thousand Women and the Consequences of Having of Being Denied an Abortion.