Abortion and Mental Health: What Can We Conclude?
Recent legal challenges to state abortion laws argue that abortion is necessary to protect women’s mental health. This paper reviews the relevant research literature on the relationship between abortion and various mental health outcomes. Despite multiple studies hypothesizing that abortion may be therapeutic for pregnant women with mental health conditions, there are no empirically established mental health benefits of abortion. There is, however, substantial empirical evidence that abortion worsens mental health outcomes for at least some women, particularly those with pre- existing mental health conditions. While the nature and degree of mental health risks from abortion remains a disputed question, we offer some conclusions that find strong support in the existing research literature.
First Pregnancy Abortion or Natural Pregnancy Loss: A Cohort Study of Mental Health Services Utilization
While both induced abortion and natural pregnancy loss have been associated with subsequent mental health problems, population-based studies directly comparing these two pregnancy outcomes are rare. We sought to compare mental health morbidity after an induced abortion or natural loss.
A Reanalysis of Mental Disorders Risk Following First-Trimester Abortions in Denmark
In this article, David Reardon analyzes a Danish study of monthly and tri-monthly rates of first-time psychiatric contact following first induced abortions reported higher rates compared to first live births but similar rates compared to nine months pre-abortion. The researchers in that study con- cluded abortion has no independent effect on mental health; and any differ- ences between psychiatric contacts after abortion and delivery are entirely attributable to pre-existing mental health differences. But these conclusions are inconsistent with similar studies that used longer time frames. Reardon’s re-analysis reveals that the Danish data is consistent with the larger body of both record-based and survey-based studies when viewed over periods of ob- servation of at least nine months. Longer periods of observation are necessary to capture both anniversary reactions and the exhaustion of coping mecha- nisms which may delay observation of post-abortion effects.
Negative Abortion Experiences: Predictors and Development of the Post-Abortion Psychological and Relational Adjustment Scale
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