Women who tried to get an abortion but were denied one were more likely to experience anxiety and to report lower self-esteem and life satisfaction than women who sought and received an abortion, found a new study. The women who did and did not terminate their pregnancy had similar levels of depression, and over time, the psychological health of the women in both groups evened out to show no differences long-term, the researchers found.
“In this study, compared with having an abortion, being denied an abortion may be associated with greater risk of initially experiencing adverse psychological outcomes,” reported M. Antonia Biggs, PhD, an associate researcher in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at University of California San Francisco, and her colleagues. “These findings do not support policies that restrict women’s access to abortion on the basis that abortion harms women’s mental health.”
Currently, nine states require women be given counseling before an abortion that includes telling her that getting abortion causes long-term mental health problems such as depression, anxiety or suicidal thoughts, according to the nonpartisan Guttmacher Institute. Those nine states—Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and West Virginia—therefore require counselors to lie to women about the psychological consequences of having an abortion.
“Women who had an abortion demonstrated more positive outcomes initially compared with women who were denied an abortion,” the authors reported. “Women who were denied an abortion, in particular those who later miscarried or had an abortion elsewhere, had the most elevated levels of anxiety and lowest self-esteem and life satisfaction one week after being denied an abortion, which quickly improved and approached levels similar to those in the other groups by 6 to 12 months. These initial elevated levels of distress experienced by both turnaway groups may be a response to being denied an abortion, as well as other social and emotional challenges faced on discovery of unwanted pregnancy and abortion seeking.”
The researchers recruited women for the study from 30 different abortion facilities in 21 states between January 2008 and December 2010. A total of 956 women participated in the study and were an average age of 25. They first answered questions by phone one week after they went to the center to get an abortion. Then they were interviewed twice a year for the next five years.
Because the abortion centers each had limits on how far along in pregnancy the women could be to get an abortion, some women were turned away. Overall, 413 were close to the limit but just under it and able to get an abortion while 210 women had passed the gestational weeks limit and could not get an abortion. In the second group, 160 of those women went on to give birth while the other 50 either had a miscarriage or got an abortion elsewhere. The other 254 women in the study had an abortion in the first trimester.
At the one week interview after seeking an abortion, no differences existed in terms of educational level, marital status, mental health history or prior drug or alcohol abuse among the different groups of women.
The women with first-trimester abortions had the fewest symptoms of depression compared to the other groups, which were all relatively similar. Over time, the depression symptoms improved for all groups except those who had been denied an abortion and went on to give birth—their symptoms of depression remained about the same as they were the week after being denied an abortion.
At that first one-week interview, women who had been denied an abortion were more likely to have anxiety symptoms than the women who did get an abortion. Those who could not get abortions—but eventually did not have the baby anyway—had four times greater odds of having anxiety than women who got an abortion close to the gestational time limit. Again, however, anxiety levels decreased for all the groups over time—except the group who were denied an abortion and went on to have their baby.
Although the women turned away from getting an abortion initially had lower self-esteem and lower life satisfaction than those granted an abortion, these levels improved over time for all groups except those who got an abortion in the first trimester.
“The reasons women give for seeking abortion—not having enough money, partner issues, bad timing, needing to focus on existing children, and not being emotionally or mentally prepared—are indicative of their difficult circumstances at the time they seek an abortion,” the authors wrote. “The experience of an unintended pregnancy may cause women to contend with their circumstances and reflect on their lives. When relationships and financial situations are thought to be insufficient to support a pregnancy, this feeling of deficiency, rather than the decision to abort or the procedure itself, may be the cause of lowered mental health indicators.”
The authors cite another previous study which found “that women’s self-esteem levels were lowest and depressive symptoms highest just before having an abortion, with immediate improvements observed from the period before to the period after the abortion.”
By the last interview of the study five years later, the group with the most depression or depression symptoms was the group of women who were denied an abortion and went on to give birth, though these findings were more limited by losing track of women for the followup questions by the end of five years. Around 7% of these women had depression at five years, compared to less than 4% among the women who had an abortion or were initially turned away but later had a miscarriage or abortion. In other words, not only do multiple states require misinforming women that abortions can lead to depression — they tell women the exact opposite of the truth: that being denied an abortion and eventually having the baby is associated with the highest rates of depression.
One of those states, Texas, recently passed additional restrictions on abortion that require the fetal remains to be buried or incinerated if the abortion occurs at a healthcare facility. Requiring burial, instead of using a sanitary landfill where other biological waste goes, will create additional bureaucracy and costs that will likely be passed on to women. The rule is already being challenged and is likely to be struck down by the courts as Indiana’s similar law was.
It’s not just misinformation about mental health that some states require women to hear before getting an abortion. Arkansas, Kansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas all require counseling that falsely tells women that getting an abortion is linked to breast cancer. In reality, researchers have known more than a decade that there is no link between abortion and breast cancer, which is supported by the National Cancer Institute.
In addition, a dozen states require women to hear that the fetus feels pain when she gets an abortion. That statement is also flat false. A systematic review in 2005 found it unlikely that a fetus can feel any pain before 29 to 30 weeks of pregnancy, and less than 1.3% of abortions are performed at 21 weeks or later. Both the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in the UK have likewise confirmed that women receiving early abortions—when nearly 99% of them occur—do not cause pain to the fetus.
Yet any woman seeking an abortion in Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, South Dakota or Texas must listen to state-required false information about fetal pain regardless of how far along they are in their pregnancy. Women in Arizona, Minnesota, Oklahoma and Utah are counseled about fetal pain if they seek an abortion at 20 weeks of pregnancy or later, and Missouri women hear it if they seek an abortion at 22 weeks of pregnancy or later.
“Our study demonstrates that, during a 5-year period, women receiving wanted abortions had similar or better mental health outcomes than those who were denied a wanted abortion,” the authors concluded.
[Source:-Forbes]
