Abortion and Mental Health

Is There Sufficient Evidence to Support a Link?

By E. Christian Brugger

WASHINGTON, D.C., SEPT. 14, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Does induced abortion increase a woman's risk of mental health problems? The question has been asked continually over the past several decades with dozens of studies indicating a positive correlation [1], but a few well-publicized studies are arriving at the opposite conclusion.

An example of the latter is a widely quoted report in 2008 by the American Psychological Association Task Force on Mental Health and Abortion. The report confidently concludes that there is "no evidence sufficient to support the claim" of a positive link between a woman's abortion and increased mental distress. Abortion advocacy groups eagerly jumped on the report to announce that abortion posed no threat at all to a woman's mental health.

The APA report comes under harsh methodological scrutiny in the September issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry (BJPsych) in a study by Priscilla K. Coleman, professor of human development and family studies at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Coleman claims that the 2008 report, which alleges to collect and analyze all relevant empirical research after 1989, employs inadequate criteria to select which studies to incorporate and which to exclude from its analysis: it ends including the results of "numerous weaker studies" and unjustifiably eliminating "dozens of methodologically sophisticated international studies."

http://www.zenit.org/article-33439?l=english