By Denise Hunnell, MD

The British Journal of Psychiatry has just published the most exhaustive and scientifically rigorous review to date of studies pertaining to the mental health consequences of abortion. In the September 2011 issue, a literature review by Professor Priscilla Coleman finds that women who have abortions have an 81% increased risk of mental health problems when compared to women who have carried a pregnancy to term or to women who have never been pregnant.

The type of review that Professor Coleman published allows scientists to assess the findings of several individual studies, and in so doing, to be able to discern overall trends that individual studies cannot present. And her review is important for several reasons.

First of all, it rebuts the claims of three recently published literature reviews, including one by the American Psychological Association Task Force, that claim to find no relation between abortion and mental health issues. Professor Coleman attributes these differing results to the serious design flaws of previous reviews; including her finding that many well-designed individual studies that met the stated criteria for inclusion were excluded with no explanation.

Numerous studies had shown a statistically significant relationship between abortion and subsequent substance abuse, yet these studies were also inexplicably excluded from two of the three most recent reviews. The American Psychological Association Task Force, in particular, blatantly applied its inclusion criteria inconsistently. It included international studies in some of its analysis but excluded them from other parts without justifying this change in criteria. Such arbitrary decisions leave the authors of these previous studies open to charges of ideological bias.

The second reason that Professor Coleman’s review is important is that it only included studies with a defined control group, a feature which is generally understood to increase accuracy in conclusions. To these studies she applied a quantitative statistical analysis. Her conclusions shed light on the relative risk of specific mental health problems for women who have had an abortion when compared with all women who carried a pregnancy to term and those who have never been pregnant. She found that women who had abortions had a statistically significant higher risk of mental health problems compared to women who had never been pregnant, women who carried a pregnancy to term, and, very interestingly, women who carried an unintended pregnancy to term.

The result of Professor Coleman’s more rigorous analysis is that, when looking at the specific type of mental health problem, she found unequivocal differences between groups in the areas of substance abuse, suicidal tendencies, depression and anxiety. Women who had an abortion were 230% more likely to use marijuana than women who had not had an abortion. Women who had an abortion were 155% more likely to exhibit suicidal behaviors than were women who had not had an abortion. Women who had an abortion were 110% more likely to abuse alcohol than women who had not had an abortion. Women who had an abortion were 37% more likely to suffer from depression and 34% more likely to suffer from anxiety than women who had not had an abortion.

The third reason that this study is important is because it upends one of the key arguments used by those who perform and promote abortion to convince scared and wavering young women to refuse to carry their unintended pregnancy to term. The argument is basically that they will be happier overall if they abort the child and get back to their life plans. The comparison of women who had an abortion to women who carried an unintended pregnancy to term showed a statistically significant increased risk for mental health issues related to abortion. While the risk was not as great when compared to all women who carried a pregnancy to term, women who had an abortion had a 55% increased risk of exhibiting substance abuse, depression, anxiety, or suicidal behaviors than do women who carried unintended pregnancies to term.

Good science and good medicine demand that all women who are considering an abortion must be made aware of these very real and significant risks. How can a woman give truly informed consent if this information is hidden from her? It is impossible to be an advocate for women and deny them access to information about the risks of abortion – including these important new findings about risks to their mental health. Those who really care about the welfare of women will tell them the truth: abortion kills a child and wounds a woman physically, mentally, and spiritually.

Denise Hunnell, MD, is a fellow of HLI America. She writes for HLI America’s Truth and Charity Forum.

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Tags: abortion, mental health
Posted in Abortion, Bioethics, Denise Hunnell MD, Feature Post, Truth and Charity Forum | 3 Comments »