In August 2008, the American Psychological Association (APA) abortion task force published
a report examining the evidence for the claim that elective abortion leads to negative
mental health outcomes [
[1]
]. Among other things, the report included a brief review of 25 papers published after
1989 in peer-reviewed journals based on secondary data analyses of publicly available
data sets or medical records, which were collected for purposes other than understanding
the relationship of abortion and mental health. Another recent review by Charles et
al. [
[2]
] examined studies on abortion and its long-term mental health outcomes, and included
21 studies published between January 1, 1989, and August 1, 2008, of which 15 were
secondary data analyses. Using different approaches, both reviews concluded that studies
with the most sound methodological and data analytic techniques find no evidence for
an increase in the relative risk of negative health problems for women undergoing
an elective abortion, compared to delivering an unintended pregnancy. However, neither
provided guidelines for others to follow when evaluating research on abortion and
mental health, and studies of variable rigor continue to be published in peer-reviewed
journals. Such guidelines are needed because studies of abortion and mental health
require researchers to make study design and data analyses choices, some of which
may increase the chances of finding an association between abortion and mental health.To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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References
- Report of the APA Task Force on Mental Health and Abortion.([Accessed September 2008])
- Abortion and long-term mental health outcomes: a systematic review of the evidence.Contraception. 2008; 78: 436-450
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- Understanding the relationship of violence against women to unwanted pregnancy and its resolution.in: Beckman L. Harvey S.M. The new civil war: the psychology, culture, and politics of abortion. Am Psychol Assn, Washington, DC1998: 211-234
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- Debates about our design are beside the point: the Reardon and Cougle findings are invalid and cannot be reproduced with properly coded data.Br Med J. 2005; ([Accessed November 2008])
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: August 25, 2009
Accepted:
June 2,
2009
Received in revised form:
May 15,
2009
Received:
November 14,
2008
Identification
Copyright
© 2009 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
