The Turnaway Play is about what really 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 well-being of women, but in fact, being denied an abortion results in worse financial, health and family outcomes.

RSVP HERE: https://www.purplepass.com/events/334122-the-turnaway-play-sep-26th-2025

Lesley Lisa Greene (playwright) is a playwright, composer, sound designer and event producer based in Ithaca, NY. 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. She is co-director of Story House Ithaca and co-founded and continues to be an organizer of Porchfest, a music festival that began in Ithaca in 2007 and now takes place in more than 225 cities across North America. She is also the sister of Turnaway Study author Diana Greene Foster! lesleylisagreene.com 

Diana Greene Foster, PhD, is a demographer and professor at the University of California, San Francisco. She led the United States 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. She is leading a study of the health, legal and economic consequences of the end of Roe in the United States and a Turnaway Study in Nepal. She was named a 2023 MacArthur Fellow and is the author of over 130 scientific papers as well as the 2020 book, The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, a Thousand Women and the Consequences of Having – or Being Denied – an Abortion. She is also the sister of Turnaway Play author Lesley Greene!

Learn more about the project here.