A recent Danish study suggests that women who have had an abortion are no more likely to develop depression than women who don’t. The data on 396,397 women born in Denmark between 1980 and 1994 includes 30,834 women who had an abortion and 85,592 who gave birth.
Women who had an abortion were more likely to take antidepressants, but these women were already showing increased use of antidepressants before their pregnancy. In other words, women who had an abortion are not significantly more likely to go on antidepressants, but in this group of women, those who are on antidepressants were more likely to get an abortion.
Women who had an abortion were 54 percent more likely to take antidepressants in the year after the procedure than women who didn’t have abortions but were tracked for the same one-year period, the study found. But their increased use of antidepressants was already evident in the year before the abortions, when these women were 46 percent more likely to take antidepressants than their counterparts who didn’t have abortions.” – Reuters
Past research has also been unable to show a correlation between abortions and mental health problems, but abortion opponents have still been using depression and other mental disorders as a reason to avoid abortions.
“Our study shows that there was an association between abortion and antidepressant use – but because the risk of antidepressant use was the same in the year before and after the abortion and goes down as more time from the abortion passes, it cannot be that abortion is causing depression or antidepressant use.” -Julia Steinberg, lead researcher
Steinberg also said that other factors like mental illness and being at a social disadvantage are associated with both having an abortion and with suffering from depression. Check out the Reuters article, Abortion not tied to increased risk of depression for more information.
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Another study found that those who are denied abortions are more likely to suffer from mental health issues. Check out the video for more on that: