RESEARCH

Gretchen is a researcher at Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, part of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco.

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She is the author of Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood, forthcoming from St. Martin’s Press (Macmillan) in February 2024.

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Her studies on adoption include hundreds of in-depth interviews with women who have relinquished infants for domestic adoption over the past sixty years, with a particular focus on women who have relinquished since Roe v. Wade. Her research examing adoption decision-making after abortion denial (as part of The Turnaway Study) was cited in the Supreme Court’s dissent in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health from Justices Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor. In response to the oral arguments and decision in Dobbs, she authored pieces in the Washington Post, The Nation, and the Washington Post (again). Gretchen’s research been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered and Consider This, as well as in New York Magazine, VOX, and other outlets.

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She is also the principal investigator for the Abortion Onscreen program, studying depictions of abortion in American popular culture. This work has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, TIME Magazine, New York Magazine and many other outlets over the last decade.