Women Have Worse Mental Health Issues After Abortions Than Giving Birth, Per New Study

Many women are convinced to abort their baby because they're told that they will suffer far fewer mental health issues compared to the possibility of them becoming a mom. This has become a rallying cry for many feminist pro-abortion activists; they claim that women will suffer mentally and emotionally if they don't have access to on-demand abortion in every single US state. But a new study from this year suggests otherwise. The opposite seems to be true, in fact. Women who have opted in for abortion tend to have more mental health problems compared to the women who give birth to their children.

Women Have Worse Mental Health after Abortions Than Giving Birth, per New Study

A study called "A Cohort Study of Mental Health Services Utilization Following a First Pregnancy Abortion or Birth" was published in May 2023, and the objective was to "determine whether exposure to a first pregnancy outcome of induced abortion, compared to a live birth, is associated with an increased risk and likelihood of mental health morbidity." Studies from Germany, Finland, Italy, China, Korea, and the US highlight a correlation between abortion and heightened rates of psychiatric conditions, depression, adjustment disorder, somatoform disorder, suicidal ideation, and stress. The risk tends to increase with multiple abortions. However, these studies faced a few challenges such as low response rates, recall bias, lack of precision in defining exposure periods and outcomes, and concealment of past abortions.

Two vital factors that previous studies often fail to consider adequately are the mental health status of women before the pregnancy outcome and the specific pregnancy outcome(s) acting as the exposure “agent”. There's a need to acknowledge that women who have abortions may already be mentally or emotionally troubled prior to the procedure. How far back to monitor this "before" period and how to identify the mental health issue are additional challenges. Furthermore, most studies focus solely on a single abortion, usually the first pregnancy outcome. But potential mental health threats related to a woman’s reproductive history can occur anytime following the first pregnancy. No current study takes into account a woman’s entire reproductive history and its association with mental health disorders.

The range of potential mental health problems is vast, with varied means of measurement. These include depression scores from a questionnaire, bipolar disorder linked with unexpected or interrupted pregnancies, substance abuse related to abortion, and drug overdose both before and after abortion. In a prior longitudinal study, the authors noted that women whose first pregnancy ended in abortion were consistently more likely to have another abortion in each subsequent pregnancy. Compared to women whose first pregnancy resulted in a live birth, women who had a first pregnancy abortion had more pregnancies, about half the births, and over four times the number of abortions.

This study investigated the long-term mental health effects on women whose first pregnancy ends in induced abortion versus those whose first pregnancy ends in a live birth. The research indicated that women who experience an abortion in their first pregnancy are significantly more likely to suffer mental health problems throughout their reproductive years compared to women who give birth in their first pregnancy. This relationship was consistent across all types of mental health services, but it was particularly noticeable for hospital admissions and length of stay, suggesting that abortion might be more closely linked to the severity of mental illness rather than its incidence. However, the study design did not permit any firm conclusions related to illness severity.

Interestingly, the study found that women who gave birth in their first pregnancy generally used mental health services more prior to that first pregnancy than women who experienced an abortion in their first pregnancy. Following the first pregnancy, however, women who had an abortion demonstrated significantly higher rates of mental health service utilization than women in the birth cohort. The increase in utilization post-pregnancy was dramatically larger for the abortion cohort, with a 4.8-fold increase compared to a 1.2-fold increase in the birth cohort. The research also revealed a considerable increase in hospital stay lengths for the abortion cohort post-pregnancy, suggesting an elevated risk and likelihood of extended psychiatric admissions following induced abortion.

Differences in age and exposure time to possible health issues were identified between the cohorts. Women who gave birth were, on average, about 14 months older at the time of the first pregnancy outcome than women who had an abortion. The birth cohort also spent more time pregnant before the first pregnancy outcome, which could impact the occurrence of psychiatric conditions such as depression and anxiety, commonly reported in pregnant women.

The study sample was restricted to women eligible for Medicaid, meaning that the results may not be generalizable to populations with different socio-demographic characteristics. Moreover, certain limitations related to the use of claims data, such as unavailable contextual variables (e.g., marital status, education, religious affiliation), and services not covered by Medicaid, were identified. While the study's comprehensive indices of mental health services across a 17-year period represented a research strength, it was highlighted that the findings do not allow for conclusions about any specific mental health illness or disorder. The unit of analysis, being the total cohort, might also conceal associations specific to certain subpopulations. As such, future research should focus on carefully matched subpopulations and provide more clinically relevant context.

There isn't much research on this topic in recent years, but this study does suggest that women are much more likely to suffer from mental health disorders if they choose abortion over giving birth. But this research certainly won't be shared on a national level, nor will you ever hear this very important information from abortion activists. They want to continue pushing the complete opposite narrative, which falsely claims that women will deal with worse mental health issues if they don't have access to abortion.