Study: Women More Likely to Face Mental Health Problems After Abortion Than Birth

A large scientific study has concluded that women who have had an “induced abortion” were more likely to experience mental conditions than were women who have given birth. The study, published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, followed 28,721 women who induced abortions and 1,228,807 who gave birth in hospitals in Quebec, Canada, between 2006 and 2022. The results were striking:

In this population-based study of more than 1.2 million pregnancies, having an induced abortion was associated with an increased risk of hospitalization for a mental disorder more than a decade later. Compared with live births and stillbirths, patients with induced abortions had a greater risk of admission for psychiatric disorders, substance use disorders, and suicide attempts over time. Patients with abortions who were under age 25 years or had a preexisting mental health disorder were most at risk of mental health hospitalization. The association with mental health hospitalization was greatest within five years of abortion and weakened thereafter. After 17 years of follow-up, the risk of mental health hospitalization began to resemble pregnancies that carried to term.

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Specifically (citations omitted):

Hospitalization rates were elevated for all types of mental disorders following abortion. Compared with other pregnancies, patients with abortions had higher hospitalization rates for any mental disorder (104.0 vs. 42.0 per 10,000 person-years), psychiatric disorders (85.1 vs 37.1 per 10,000 person-years), substance use disorders (56.7 vs 15.0 per 10,000 person-years), and suicide attempts (14.7 vs 4.4 per 10,000 person-years)…Abortion was associated with the long-term risk of hospitalization for psychiatric disorders, substance use disorders, and suicide attempts in models adjusted for age, comorbidity, preexisting mental illness, material deprivation, rural residence, and time period. Abortion was more strongly associated with eating disorders, hallucinogen use disorders, and cocaine use disorders.

Attention should be paid to this bottom line:

While these findings are not evidence of a causal link between abortion and long-term mental health sequelae, they support the possibility that abortion may be a marker of an increased lifetime risk of mental disorders. Screening for mental disorders at the time of abortion may be an opportunity to identify women who could benefit from psychological and social support, particularly women with preexisting mental health disorders, under age 25 years, and with previous live births or abortions.

This study is notable because of its size and scope, its contradicting previous understandings, and its publication in a mainstream, peer-reviewed medical journal by authors not identified with the pro-life movement.

At the very least, if informed consent and “choice” are to mean anything, abortionists should be duty-bound to inform pregnant women about this particular risk.

LifeNews.com Note: Wesley J. Smith, J.D. is Chair and Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism. Wesley is a contributor to National Review and is the author of 14 books, in recent years focusing on human dignity, liberty, and equality. Wesley has been recognized as one of America’s premier public intellectuals on bioethics by National Journal and has been honored by the Human Life Foundation as a “Great Defender of Life” for his work against suicide and euthanasia. Wesley’s most recent book is Culture of Death: The Age of “Do Harm” Medicine, a warning about the dangers to patients of the modern bioethics movement. He blogs at Human Exeptionalism.

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