After two years of study, a panel of the American Psychological Association (APA) concluded today that having one abortion does not cause significant mental-health problems for women.
Priscilla Coleman, a researcher at Bowling Green State University, came to a different conclusion in her studies. She found that between 10 percent and 20 percent of women who have abortions experience prolonged mental-health problems.
"We're not doing women any favors by hiding this," she told the Wall Street Journal.
Carrie Gordon Earll, senior bioethics analyst at Focus on the Family Action, said the APA buried the real news.
“The report basically admits that if you’ve had multiple abortions, your risk for mental-health problems may be greater," she said. ”If you've been pressured or coerced into an abortion, you may have an even more negative experience."
Sixty percent of abortions are either repeat abortions or those in which the women are pressured to have one.
"That’s millions of women whose needs and psychological problems are not represented in this report," Earll said. "The APA is spinning the results to their desired political conclusion, which is that they want to keep abortion legal and promoted in the culture.”
The report also found that many of the more than 150 studies it reviewed had major flaws, and it called for better-designed studies.
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Focus on the Family offers help to women who have had an abortion.
