Published 5 December 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a2902
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a2902

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Abortion does not cause mental health problems, says large review

Janice Hopkins Tanne

1 New York

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Women who have an elective legal abortion do not experience depression or long term psychological distress afterward, according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in Baltimore, Maryland (Contraception 2008;78:436-50, (doi:10:1016/j.contraception.2008.07.005). They reviewed the best 21 studies published in the past 20 years, involving thousands of women.

"The highest quality studies had findings that were mostly neutral, suggesting few, if any differences between women who had abortions and their respective comparison groups in terms of mental health sequelae. Conversely, studies with the most flawed methodology found negative mental health sequelae," the authors write.

The authors say that their findings are important because claims that elective abortion causes mental health problems have been used in making policy. The US Supreme Court included adverse mental health outcomes in its reasoning to limit late term abortions in a decision last year. Several US states include warnings . . . [Full text of this article]


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