Abortion Does Not Cause Mental Health Problems in Adults or Teens

by Alex DiBranco · 2010-09-24 17:10:00 UTC
Topics:

One popular falsehood promoted by the anti-choice movement is that having an abortion will cause women mental health problems, which they like to dub "abortion trauma syndrome." In 2008, the American Psychological Association (APA) debunked that claim with a study that found absolutely no evidence of an abortion-mental health link in adult women. Now, a new study that will appear in Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health finds that this holds true for teenagers as well.

Crisis pregnancy centers, which particularly prey on teenage and young adult women, regularly use scare tactics related to non-existent consequences of abortion to attempt to manipulate pregnant women out of exercising their legal rights uncoerced. By making up lies about the negative consequences of abortion, pretending side effects from an increased risk of breast cancer to severe depression, they are trying to deny women the ability to make an informed choice about their bodies. These studies of both adult and teenage women, which finds that neither depression nor self-esteem problems are more prevalent in people who have an abortion than those who keep the pregnancy, reveal what a pack of lies this is.

But, unfortunately, crisis pregnancy centers aren't the only ones in involved with this campaign of misinformation. As the Guttmacher Institute points out, 34 state require pre-abortion counseling, and 7 mandate warning women of potential psychological risks from choosing abortion. Must suck to be a doctor required by law to tell patients something he or she knows to be untrue.

The study argues that these laws "jeopardize women’s health by adding unnecessary anxiety and undermining women’s right to informed consent." Considering that pregnancy, on the other hand, can result in post-partum depression, a risk that women do need to know of in order to protect themselves and their children, it's absurd that these states instead treat only women who want abortions as incapable of making decisions without counseling and in need of warnings about (non-existent) psychological ill effects. Seriously, who ever heard of states mandating that every women who wants to keep a pregnancy receive counseling to dissuade her from that decision with exaggerated risks to mental health?

Photo credit: db photographs

Alex DiBranco is a Change.org Editor who has worked for the Nation, Political Research Associates, and the Center for American Progress. She is now based in New York City.
PREVIOUS STORY:
In North Carolina, No Changing Your Mind About Having Sex
NEXT STORY:
Fox News' Trotta Still Doesn't Get It: I Want Her Rape Apologism Off the Air

COMMENTS (46)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.