![razingcomplacency:
propaganda-for-life:
jerm4papa:
[Image: Two women holding up signs reading “I Regret My Abortion”. End description.]
Largest ever study finds abortion increases risk of severe mental health problems by 81%
“….the largest quantitative estimate of mental health risks associated with abortion available in the world literature.” The research revealed that abortion was associated with a 34% increased risk for anxiety disorders; 37% greater risk of depression; 110% greater risk of alcohol abuse and 220% greater risk of marijuana use/abuse. Abortion was also linked with a 155% greater risk of attempting to commit suicide.
I have said it before….abortion is bad for women.
Whether this study will hold up remains to be seen, but you know what else is bad for uterus-bearers? Forced pregnancy and childbirth. They are a form of torture. If this study does reveal some truth, then it’s further proof that we need to prevent the need for most abortions in the first place—the best way to do that, of course, is with comprehensive sex education and increasing access to birth control, condoms, and other contraceptive methods (so stop defunding Planned Parenthood). But even then, we can never erase the need for it completely.
This study also never clearly defines what a “severe mental disorder” is. Maybe it does, but I have to pay to read the full text, so fuck that. How did the researchers define “sever mental disorder”? Depression? Feelings of regret? Post-Abortion Syndrome (which most major scientists worldwide agree does not exist)? How many of these people had mental health issues already? Who diagnosed them, and how many of them could be misdiagnoses? How many of the people who started “abusing drugs” after the abortion were already users before the procedure? What’s the margin of error? While the study claims to be all-inclusive of these sorts of factors in the abstract, I can’t give it the benefit of the doubt without being able to read the full text. Further, I think a lot of “post-abortion guilt” can easily be attributed to anti-choice stigmas and patriarchy.
Bolded for emphasis. Pro-life people /never/ seem to talk about that though.
I highly doubt the study will hold up under scrutiny. Priscilla Coleman is an undoubtedly biased “scientist” who regularly speaks at pro-life events and has been repeatedly criticized for her outrageously bad methodology. She collaborated for some time with David Reardon, creator of the anti-choice Elliot Institute and well-known for misrepresenting his credentials.
From a 2007 PBS interview:
HINOJOSA: David Reardon has not responded to our many emails and phone calls requesting an interview…however one of his frequent co-authors, Priscilla Coleman, a human development and family studies professor at Ohio’s Bowling Green State University came to New York to talk about her research. HINOJOSA: So you don’t have a problem with the fact that David Reardon has a Ph.D. from an unaccredited university? COLEMAN: It’s—I don’t have a problem with anything about David really, except for if, when we’re working together, there’s anything in the writing or the analysis that—that I don’t agree with. I mean, I—all we do—we don’t have discussions about pro-life issues. All we do is work on a paper together. HINOJOSA: And you don’t feel that your information— COLEMAN: I know it— HINOJOSA: —because you’re so tied to David Reardon— COLEMAN: I’m— HINOJOSA: —is—is— COLEMAN: —I’m not really tied to David Reardon. I’ve met him— HINOJOSA: But you’ve published more than a dozen— COLEMAN: Not that many— HINOJOSA: —articles— COLEMAN: —with him. HINOJOSA: Well, actually, let’s see. We have them right here. COLEMAN: I don’t think it’s that many. HINOJOSA: —the number of articles—that you have co-authored, and studies. One, two, three—we have 12 right here. So when you have this level of collaboration with David Reardon—and—and people say, “Look, Priscilla Coleman is tied to the anti-abortion movement, we can’t look at her science as being unbiased,” you say? COLEMAN: I handled the data, I analyzed it in a scrupulous way. We encouraged people to reanalyze our data. And we’ve used—nationally representative samples, data that’s been collected by other people—for other purposes that just happened to have the right variable repro—reproductive history and—various mental health outcomes.
Unfortunately for Coleman, other scientists have not been able to reproduce her results (more here and here), and her studies are so poorly written that understanding how she came to her conclusions is sometimes, at best, a guessing game.
HINOJOSA: In emails, two prominent independent scientists, on a panel that is reviewing the scientific literature for the American Psychological Association told us the studies have “inadequate or inappropriate” controls and don’t adequately control “for women’s mental health prior to the pregnancy and abortion.”
The American Psychological Association reviewed all empirical studies that studied mental health after abortion, and concluded two things: most studies on the subject are deeply flawed; and the ones that aren’t conclude there is no link.
You can read a summary of the report here, and the entire report here (PDF).
The study is so recent that there are, as of yet, no reviews and no attempts to reproduce the results, but I can almost guarantee you that when her findings are challenged, as they will be, the study will fall apart.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqwp01E5XN1qznwj1o1_500.jpg)
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[Image: Two women holding up signs reading “I Regret My Abortion”. End description.]
Largest ever study finds abortion increases risk of severe mental health problems by 81%
“….the largest quantitative estimate of mental health risks associated with abortion available in the world literature.” The research revealed that abortion was associated with a 34% increased risk for anxiety disorders; 37% greater risk of depression; 110% greater risk of alcohol abuse and 220% greater risk of marijuana use/abuse. Abortion was also linked with a 155% greater risk of attempting to commit suicide.
I have said it before….abortion is bad for women.
Whether this study will hold up remains to be seen, but you know what else is bad for uterus-bearers? Forced pregnancy and childbirth. They are a form of torture. If this study does reveal some truth, then it’s further proof that we need to prevent the need for most abortions in the first place—the best way to do that, of course, is with comprehensive sex education and increasing access to birth control, condoms, and other contraceptive methods (so stop defunding Planned Parenthood). But even then, we can never erase the need for it completely.
This study also never clearly defines what a “severe mental disorder” is. Maybe it does, but I have to pay to read the full text, so fuck that. How did the researchers define “sever mental disorder”? Depression? Feelings of regret? Post-Abortion Syndrome (which most major scientists worldwide agree does not exist)? How many of these people had mental health issues already? Who diagnosed them, and how many of them could be misdiagnoses? How many of the people who started “abusing drugs” after the abortion were already users before the procedure? What’s the margin of error? While the study claims to be all-inclusive of these sorts of factors in the abstract, I can’t give it the benefit of the doubt without being able to read the full text. Further, I think a lot of “post-abortion guilt” can easily be attributed to anti-choice stigmas and patriarchy.
Bolded for emphasis. Pro-life people /never/ seem to talk about that though.
I highly doubt the study will hold up under scrutiny. Priscilla Coleman is an undoubtedly biased “scientist” who regularly speaks at pro-life events and has been repeatedly criticized for her outrageously bad methodology. She collaborated for some time with David Reardon, creator of the anti-choice Elliot Institute and well-known for misrepresenting his credentials.
From a 2007 PBS interview:
HINOJOSA: David Reardon has not responded to our many emails and phone calls requesting an interview…however one of his frequent co-authors, Priscilla Coleman, a human development and family studies professor at Ohio’s Bowling Green State University came to New York to talk about her research.
HINOJOSA: So you don’t have a problem with the fact that David Reardon has a Ph.D. from an unaccredited university?
COLEMAN: It’s—I don’t have a problem with anything about David really, except for if, when we’re working together, there’s anything in the writing or the analysis that—that I don’t agree with. I mean, I—all we do—we don’t have discussions about pro-life issues. All we do is work on a paper together.
HINOJOSA: And you don’t feel that your information—
COLEMAN: I know it—
HINOJOSA: —because you’re so tied to David Reardon—
COLEMAN: I’m—
HINOJOSA: —is—is—
COLEMAN: —I’m not really tied to David Reardon. I’ve met him—
HINOJOSA: But you’ve published more than a dozen—
COLEMAN: Not that many—
HINOJOSA: —articles—
COLEMAN: —with him.
HINOJOSA: Well, actually, let’s see. We have them right here.
COLEMAN: I don’t think it’s that many.
HINOJOSA: —the number of articles—that you have co-authored, and studies. One, two, three—we have 12 right here.
So when you have this level of collaboration with David Reardon—and—and people say, “Look, Priscilla Coleman is tied to the anti-abortion movement, we can’t look at her science as being unbiased,” you say?
COLEMAN: I handled the data, I analyzed it in a scrupulous way. We encouraged people to reanalyze our data.
And we’ve used—nationally representative samples, data that’s been collected by other people—for other purposes that just happened to have the right variable repro—reproductive history and—various mental health outcomes.
Unfortunately for Coleman, other scientists have not been able to reproduce her results (more here and here), and her studies are so poorly written that understanding how she came to her conclusions is sometimes, at best, a guessing game.
HINOJOSA: In emails, two prominent independent scientists, on a panel that is reviewing the scientific literature for the American Psychological Association told us the studies have “inadequate or inappropriate” controls and don’t adequately control “for women’s mental health prior to the pregnancy and abortion.”
The American Psychological Association reviewed all empirical studies that studied mental health after abortion, and concluded two things: most studies on the subject are deeply flawed; and the ones that aren’t conclude there is no link.
You can read a summary of the report here, and the entire report here (PDF).
The study is so recent that there are, as of yet, no reviews and no attempts to reproduce the results, but I can almost guarantee you that when her findings are challenged, as they will be, the study will fall apart.
