Is "Post-Abortion Syndrome" Just a Myth?

(CBS) Can having an abortion cause a woman to suffer mental problems? Probably not, according to the latest research.

To some, this might seem like a no-brainer, but the findings are in direct contradiction to a well-publicized 2009 study which found women who reported having had an abortion had higher rates of substance abuse and mood disorders than women who had not.

Last year's study, led by Dr. Priscilla Coleman of Bowling Green State University, analyzed data collected by the National Comorbidity Survey. Coleman found that large numbers of women who had abortions ended up suffering from what the media called "post-abortion syndrome."

Yet when the same data was analyzed by Dr. Lawrence Finer of the Guttmacher Institute and Julia Steinberg of the University of California in San Francisco, the researchers found that Coleman's results could not be replicated.

The number of women who had abortions and subsequently suffered from mental problems - as reported by Coleman - were sometimes more than five times as large as the numbers Finer and Steinburg came up with, the Washington Post reported.

"We were unable to reproduce the most basic tabulations of Coleman and colleagues," Julia Steinberg, a postdoctoral fellow at UCSF, said in a written statement.

Coleman stands behind her work, and told the Washington Post that Finer and Steinburg didn't look at the mental health of the subjects over as long a period of time as she did. "I am not the only credentialed scientists whose research is indicating that abortion is not without serious mental health risks for many women," she contends.

One can imagine the political implications of the dueling analyses, and Finer makes his position clear.

"Antiabortion activists have relied on questionable science in their efforts to push inclusion of the concept of 'post-abortion syndrome' in both clinical practice and law," he says. "Our inability to replicate the findings of the Coleman study makes it clear that research claiming to find relationships between abortion and poor mental health indicators should be subjected to close scrutiny."

[jazzgrrl58]

I had an early-term abortion nearly 30 years ago, and have never once regretted my decision.

[jazzgrrl58]

I had an early-term abortion nearly 30 years ago, and have never once regretted my decision.

[missyfive]

I've known women who had abortions in the '70s; one had 3 abortions, another 2. These women went on later to have families when they were ready and have never expressed any regret over having had their abortions. As a Catholic, we were taught that abortion was wrong yet in the women I've known, God has not punished these women but blessed them with children later in life. So much for church teaching. I've also known women who were unable to have children through no fault of their own and would give anything to have a child. Secondary infertility (unable to have a child after having one child) was also a factor in some of these women. The irony is the women who can't have children suffer with loss of self-esteem, marriages that fall apart and depression, while those who've had abortions breeze through life, never once regretting their decision. How ironic!

[peacefulperson]

I've known a lot of women who had abortions and I don't know a single one who doesn't regret it now. Sure, immediately after the procedure the woman feels relieved of a burdern, but after a couple decades, when their other children are going up and having lives, they mourn that aborted child, sometimes so much they have to go on anti-depressants. I know one woman in her 80s who had an abortion 60 years ago who carries a doll around her nursing home and refers to the doll as the child she aborted who has now come home to her. That doesn't sound like abortion has no impact on mental health to me!

[smitvict]

Unfortunately, the same can be said about women who give up children for adoption. Many obsess on where are they now, did I really have to give them up, could I have made it with them, are they looking for me, are they safe and happy?

Either option has potential mental health impacts.

[byrdh5n1]

You sound like a fervent anti-choice advocate. Which likely means you associate with fellow anti- choice people. Ya think that has anything to do with your observation? I'm on the other side of the proverbial coin and know numerous women who have had abortions (and now thankfully practice safe birth control - do you oppose that too?). We communicate freely. None, none of them has the slightest regret for that decision. They sometimes wonder "what would have happened if....," but that's just mental estimation - categorically there are no regrets, guilt, or mental reservation. Their lives are far far better for having freed themselve of an early hand-cuffing by an unwanted child.

[SusanStoHelit]

No surprise - you compare an abortion - usually done very early in pregnancy, before there's anything remotely like a baby formed - versus an unwanted pregnancy, and all of the health and mental effects of that - it's hard to figure that there's going to be much of any negative effect.

Anti-choice people believe it's a baby - and they can do so and have their choice - but people who know otherwise aren't going to feel guilty.

[dogsoul]

...yes they are - because deep down... in places they don't like to talk about, they know - that's why most people get so messed up about it. Anybody who has seen an early pregnancy ultrasound of their baby knows too. And let's take a poll of mothers who seriously considered abortion and ended up NOT doing it.... how many wish in retrospect that they had aborted their children? Look - I HOPE & WISH that, in reality, those aborted fetuses are not actually human beings... I know plenty of people who have gotten abortions & I would want nothing more than to know they did nothing wrong... but I'm fairly convinced at this point that such in unfortunately not the case. And you know it too.

[peacefulperson]

Just wait a few decades Susan and you will come to regret your abortion, too.

[dogsoul]

...honestly, just another example of how you can produce a 'study' to say whatever it is you like. There simply IS no more credibility left in the world of science - at least where the topic is even remotely politically charged. It seems all a person can do anymore is to rely on what seems to make sense. Do women who go thru an abortion have emotional/psychological issues to contend with afterwards? Well sure... not all, but I suspect most do for the plain & simple fact that they authorized someone to kill the baby that was growing inside them. Now granted, people can argue whether it was an 'actual' baby... and that's fine - but at the end of the day - most women who have had an abortion carry a good degree of uncertainty... if not outright guilt for having done so - whether they admit it or not. The abortion issue isn't really about a woman's 'right to choose' - it's about whether or not that fetus is a human being... because if we could agree on THAT point (which will never happen) - then there IS no argument. My take, well - it's at least a 50/50 chance it's human... so heads you're removing a wart, tails you're doing the unthinkable...

[peacefulperson]

I've known over a dozen women who had abortions in the 70s and 80s and not a single one of them now think they did the right thing. They ought to do a study about abortion and regret. I bet they'd find out abortion has more of an impact on women's lives than they realize.