Study Confirms Abortion Negatively Impacts Women's Health

[juliee]

Study Confirms Abortion Negatively Impacts Women’s Health

A recent study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry has concluded what pro-abortion groups have tried to discount for decades: abortion substantially increases a woman’s risk of mental health problems.

lifenews.com/2011/10/11/study-confirms-abortion-negatively-impacts-womens-health/

 

[Rascalking]

This just breaks my heart. I feel terrible for women who have had to get abortions. I wish them healing…

 

[cesarsalad]

I know a woman who committed abortion twice, due to pressure from the family. She looks okay though, what are the effects of such actions, how can we help them?

 

[TheTrueCentrist]

Author: Priscilla K. Coleman

11 out of the 22 papers she reviewed were her own. Her studies have been the subject of significant criticism, for example here. The APA has also criticized her work for poor statistical methods and confusing correlation with causation.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has issued a statement indicating that this recent publication likewise has significant shortcomings:

What this research does not fully examine is if these women had pre-existing mental health complications such as dependency issues and mood disorders before the abortion.

rcog.org.uk/what-we-do/campaigning-and-opinions/statement/rcog-statement-bjpsych-paper-mental-health-risks-and-a

Perhaps most telling of all is this study:
sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027795361000729X

Using the US National Comorbidity Survey (NCS), Coleman, Coyle, Shuping, and Rue (2009) published an analysis indicating that compared to women who had never had an abortion, women who had reported an abortion were at an increased risk of several anxiety, mood, and substance use disorders. Here, we show that those results are not replicable. That is, using the same data, sample, and codes as indicated by those authors, it is not possible to replicate the simple bivariate statistics testing the relationship of ever having had an abortion to each mental health disorder when no factors were controlled for in analyses.

In other words, when other researchers performed the exact same analysis as Coleman, they got significantly different answers. This result means that it is possible that Coleman’s research is either erroneous or fabricated.