A single abortion does not jeopardise a woman's mental health

Aug 19 2008

According to the American Psychological Association (APA) there is no evidence than an abortion increases the risk of mental health problems for adult women.

An APA task force say they have found no credible evidence that a single elective abortion jeopardises the mental health of adult women.

Dr. Brenda Major, chair of the Task Force, says they found that the best scientific evidence suggests that among adult women who have an unplanned pregnancy the risk of mental health problems is no greater if they have a single elective first-trimester abortion or deliver that pregnancy.

However Dr. Major says with multiple abortions the mental health risks are more uncertain.

The APA Task Force on Mental Health and Abortion evaluated all research published in English in peer-reviewed journals since 1989 on the mental health of women who had an induced abortion, compared to counterparts that did not and focused only on those studies found to be most methodologically sound.

The APA found that while there is some evidence that women experience feelings of loss, sadness and grief after an abortion, and some have clinically significant disorders, including depression and anxiety, there was little evidence to support the claim that was a link between abortion history and mental health problems.

The Task Force found that the problems many experienced were caused by factors other than the abortion, such as being exposed to violence, a history of drug or alcohol use, poverty, a history of emotional problems and previous unwanted births.

These factors predisposed the women to have both unwanted pregnancies, or mental health problems after a pregnancy, says the APA.

They say women have abortions for different reasons under different personal, social, cultural and economic circumstances, all of which affect a woman's mental state after an abortion and therefore global statements about the psychological impact of abortion can be misleading.

The task force did find evidence that the women who were most likely to experience negative psychological reactions after an abortion, were women who terminated a wanted pregnancy, or who felt under pressure from others to have a termination, or who felt they had to keep their abortion secret from their family and friends for fear of stigma.

The task force says despite the importance of understanding the mental health implications of abortion compared to its alternatives - motherhood or adoption - very few studies included appropriate comparison groups for addressing this issue.

One of the chief recommendations from the report is for better-designed, rigorously conducted future research on the topic to "help disentangle confounding factors and establish relative risks of abortion compared to its alternatives."

The task force's conclusions are consistent with the conclusions of an APA working group that conducted a similar review of the literature published prior to 1989.

Results of that review were published in Science in 1990 and in the American Psychologist in 1992.

The draft Report of the APA Task Force on Mental Health and Abortion is dated 13 August 2008 and was published online on the APA website on 18th August.

It was presented at the association's Annual Convention in Boston last week.