 Fifty-two percent of respondents in a Gallup poll thought she had done the right thing.” By 1965, “most Americans, 77 percent, wanted abortion legalized ‘where the health of the mother is in danger’”; in that same year, "The New York Times" called for reform of abortion laws.Planned Parenthood wrote that Chessen was able to afford going overseas to have the abortion, but many other women seeking to terminate unwanted pregnancies would turn to illegal abortions.Lee Epstein, a professor of law and political science at the University of Southern California, wrote that “Finkbine’s situation evoked sympathetic reactions from various organizations and in essence, led to the creation of an American abortion reform movement.”

Sherri Chessen has six children from her first marriage with Robert L. Finkbine.