Finally putting the lie to rest?

[catsittingstill]

Check out NPR this morning. Abortion doesn't cause depression. The study covered more than 80 thousand women who had abortions and compared them to 280 thousand women who had babies. That is plenty big enough to catch any significant effect.

When someone says abortion causes depression you know they're not a trustworthy source of information about reproductive health. Maybe they mean well, but they're not getting good information and so can't pass it on. Keep it in mind.

The abstract of the full study is here: I don't have access to the full study because I don't have access to the New England Journal of Medicine.

Comments

[bigbumble.livejournal.com]

A quick look at the numbers seems to indicate that women who have abortions are more likely to be depressed already and women who give birth are more likely to get depressed afterword.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

But the likelyhood is quite small in any event--no more than 1.5%. And giving birth does carry a risk, though that is also small; 0.5% additional. There is, on the other hand, extensive anecdotal evidence that adoption carries a huge psychological risk for both mother and child, but we don't talk about that, let alone research it.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I suppose it is possible the full study looked at that--I don't have access to it to check.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

It does not seem to have, though perhaps some of the post-partum depression reported in the study is the result of adoptions. The study seems to have been limited to the case of a first-trimester induced abortion. There is also less there than meets the eye: studies of later-term abortions might turn out to have different results.

NEJM link: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0905882
If we really wanted to know, we could visit our local medical libraries.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Later term abortions might have different results, and one would have to control for the factor of women who'd been intending to abort all along versus women who decided they wanted a baby and then discovered serious health problems, because of course having to abort a wanted fetus is going to be like having a miscarriage.

I don't have a local medical library--I could visit the Carson-Newman library, though. They might get the New England Journal of Medicine.

[kittyguitar.livejournal.com]

In some ways I think having to abort a wanted fetus would be worse than a miscarriage, because there's the added pain of having to make that choice.

Nonny

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Good point.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

More likely to have contact with a psychiatrist, I think it said. So we don't know that depression specifically was the cause.

It does seem likely to me that someone with pre-existing problems (including mental problems) that would make raising a child more difficult would be more likely to terminate an unplanned pregnancy. It's the difference between "I wasn't planning on this but now I think about it, it's kind of cool." and "I wasn't planning on this--it would be kind of cool but it's just not going to work out right now."

Regarding being more likely to get depressed after giving birth, postpartum depression is fairly well known. Some studies have placed it as high as 25% but it seems to be much lower in this one.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

I must be out of the loop; I didn't even know anyone was saying they got depressed.

I would have thought the depression of mothers who bear and spend years raising unwanted children would be a much more obvious hypothesis to explore.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's a pretty common piece of misinformation that abortion causes depression.

And I have sometimes wondered if "postpartum depression" is partly situational, of the "oh my God what have I done?" variety--which would go double if the woman didn't want a child in the first place. But in that case I would expect it to be far more common with first births than subsequent ones, and I haven't heard that it is.

[robin-june.livejournal.com]

I do have access to the article; I've downloaded it (though I will have to try to read it later; no time now).

I can send you the pdf if you want it: send me an email to the non-osu address on my user info page. The pdf is 8 pages long. If it mentions any "supplementary material," let me know and I believe that I can grab that from the journal's website.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Done, and thanks!

[robin-june.livejournal.com]

Drat! it's not coming through, and I have to go back into the lab. Can I send it to the email address that I see on your user info page? (the short one).

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Send it to the hwaet one if you like--sometimes that gets through and sometimes it doesn't. The toast one works more reliably; I'm surprised it isn't working for you today.

[occams_pyramid]

But of course women get depressed after an abortion. There's all these people standing round them yelling "YOU'RE EVIL! YOU'RE A MURDERER! YOU WILL BURN IN HELL FOR ALL ETERNITY!" and doing their best to *make* them depressed.

[maiac.livejournal.com]

Yep, the same as the allegedly higher suicide rate among homosexuals than among the heterosexual population. Live in constant fear of being bullied, harassed, persecuted and physically assaulted whether you're out or closeted, and it's bound to affect your mood, eh?

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Very true, and a good point.

[judifilksign.livejournal.com]

But many young women who have had abortions do not have access to good health care, and don't go in for psychiatric treatment for it. I'm not certain this is a good measurement, or whether it transfers to health systems other than Denmark.

I think that there is, in fact, a good deal of depression and soul-searching both prior to the decision to terminate a pregnancy, and afterwards. But the overall health of the mother, I think, is more important than whether she goes through a grief cycle. Warning pregnant women that depression afterwards is a normal outcome after an abortion is better than glossing over how much or little it happens.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Except, at least in Denmark where the study was done, that doesn't seem to be the case. You touch on something which does concern me, though. The Danes have an excellent public health system and easy access to contraceptives. It is possible that, in the USA, because we have a poor pre-natal care system and many contexts in which contraceptive use is discouraged, depression is a more likely outcome.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't this make depression a more likely outcome of *both* abortion *and* having an unwanted baby?

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Very much so. Bearing an unwanted child is depressing in itself and these practices also make bearing an unwanted child more likely. One of the biggest deceptions in this whole discussion is to ignore the pain of bearing an unwanted child. It simply is not discussed at all, except quietly on the sidelines.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Remember, this study was done in Denmark--our "poor have no healthcare" issues are not something they have a problem with.

s. Anyone can go to a physician for no fee and the public health system entitles each Dane to his/her own doctor. Expert medical/surgical aid is available, with a qualified nursing staff. Costs are borne by public authorities, but high taxes contribute to these costs.

Read more: Health - Denmark - system http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Europe/Denmark-HEALTH.html#ixzz1CKwzQzPD

So the results are not complicated by "poor people can't go to the psychiatrist so we don't see their depression" issues.

It turns out that women *are* more likely to be depressed while they are still pregnant but once the abortion is done, not so much. Presumably it's a hard and stressful time in their lives, but the abortion relieves that stress rather than causing it.

Warning women that depression *afterwards* is normal, if it's not--as now looks to be the case--is harnessing the placebo effect to do harm. It's just a bad idea.

[maiac.livejournal.com]

Alas, nothing will put this lie to rest. When Certain People claim that abortion causes depression, what they really mean is "Abortion will ruin your life" because "If you have an abortion, you must suffer a lifetime of guilt, remorse, and the constant awareness that you will burn in Hell forever." Such people are impervious to scientific evidence.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Nothing will put this lie to rest among liars.

But it will be very helpful if regular people, who don't hate women, recognize it as a lie.