USA – Abortion influences everything

By inhibiting drug development, economic growth, and military recruitment, as well as driving doctors away from the places they’re needed most, bans almost certainly harm you — yes, you.

By Keren Landman, MD
Mar 20, 2024

Last year in Texas, federal Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled that, based on his read of some very bad science, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) needed to withdraw its approval of the safe and widely used abortion drug mifepristone. He claimed that the FDA hadn’t adequately considered its safety (it had) and that the lack of restrictions on the drug (there were plenty) had led to many deaths and severe adverse events (demonstrably false).

… Restricting abortion means removing women’s control over not only their bodies, but also their futures — and giving that control to someone else. In a nation where sex education and contraception access are already spotty and about half of all pregnancies are unplanned, that act is a population-level assault on women’s autonomy. The result is a psychic wound even to those who aren’t seeking abortions.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/even-better/24106111/abortion-mifepristone-kacsmaryk-fda-economic-military-readiness-mortality-mental-health-poverty

USA – Study: Abortion Bans Creating OBGYN Crisis

Docs in anti-choice states are depressed, scared, and getting worse

JESSICA VALENTI
FEB 1, 2024

A new study shows that abortion bans have created an “occupational health crisis” for OBGYNs in anti-choice states, 93% of whom report that they or a colleague have been unable to follow standards of care because of abortion laws.

Researchers from Harvard’s School of Public Health, Boston College, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, report “deep and pervasive impacts” not just on patient outcomes—but physicians’ own health, and on state workforce sustainability.

Continued: https://jessica.substack.com/p/study-abortion-bans-creating-obgyn

01.02.2024

Commentary

Jessica Valenti

mental health and abortion

mental health crisis for abortion providers

occupational health crisis for Ob/Gyns

Ireland allowed mental health abortion exception 30 years ago

Ireland has protected the right to seek an abortion because of the risk of suicide since 1992

By Sandhya Raman

Posted December 7, 2023

While 18 U.S. states have essentially banned abortion for pregnant people facing a mental health crisis, Ireland, which had one of the strictest abortion laws in the European Union until 2018, has taken a different approach.

Ireland has protected the right to seek an abortion because of the risk of suicide since 1992. While more than two-thirds of U.S. states have enacted laws that include mental health among the medical reasons a woman can have an abortion, Ireland protected exceptions for risk of suicide long before the country voted in 2018 to repeal its amendment banning abortion.

Continued: https://rollcall.com/2023/12/07/07irelandsidebar/

07.12.2023

mental health and abortion

Sandhya Raman

suicide risk Irish law

USA – Medical exceptions to abortion bans often exclude mental health conditions

Pregnant people were more likely to die from mental health conditions than any other cause, a CDC analysis found.

Nada Hassanein, Stateline
October 24, 2023

More than a dozen states now have near-total abortion bans following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, with limited medical exceptions meant to protect the patient’s health or life.

But among those states, only Alabama explicitly includes “serious mental illness” as an allowable exception. Meanwhile, 10 states with near-total abortion bans (Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wyoming) explicitly exclude mental health conditions as legal exceptions, according to an analysis from KFF, a health policy research organization.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2023/10/medical-exceptions-abortion-bans-mental-health-conditions/

USA – Most states received a D or F grade on maternal mental health. It could get worse.

By Carlotta Dotto and Alex Leeds Matthews, CNN
Sat July 29, 2023

Nearly every state in the United States is neglecting access to maternal mental health care, according to a recent report, and experts fear the situation could get worse as more states severely restrict or ban abortion.

All but 10 US states received either a D or F grade on a number of key measures of maternal mental health risk policies and access to care — including access to therapists, psychiatrists or mental health treatment programs, according to a May report released by the nonprofit Policy Center for Maternal Mental Health, in partnership with researchers from George Washington University. This is the group’s first report grading states on maternal mental health resources and policies.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/29/health/most-states-received-a-d-or-f-grade-on-maternal-mental-health-it-could-get-worse/index.html

USA – Some could use support after abortion. But quality care can be hard to find.

Counseling, care options for patients seeking truly impartial emotional support can be limited across the U.S.

BY: KELCIE MOSELEY-MORRIS
MAY 1, 2023

Alex D. turned 23 on the day the U.S. Supreme Court released the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. She was visiting the Omaha Zoo in Nebraska on vacation, riding the chairlift over the rhino exhibit when she saw the news alert on her phone. She was also eight weeks pregnant and needed an abortion.

“I felt hated. And I was like, ‘Nobody knows that I’m pregnant right now,’” she said. “I remember walking around the zoo and also feeling like everyone knew at the same time, like they were all looking at me and like my life was falling apart.”

Continued: https://idahocapitalsun.com/2023/05/01/some-could-use-support-after-abortion-but-quality-care-can-be-hard-to-find/

Overturning Roe v. Wade increased mental health distress in women, study finds

Unsurprisingly, taking away rights is spurring anxiety on a mass scale

By NICOLE KARLIS
PUBLISHED APRIL 2, 2023

In June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark ruling Roe v. Wade, thus ending the federal enshrinement of abortion rights in America. Immediately after being overturned, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) warned that such a historic overturn would likely take a toll on women's mental health.

"By dismantling nearly 50 years of legal precedent, the Court has jeopardized the physical and mental health of millions of American women and undermined the privacy of the physician-patient relationship," the APA said in a statement. "This move will disproportionately impact our most vulnerable populations, such as communities of color, people living in rural areas and those with low incomes who may have to travel long distances to receive abortions."

Continued: https://www.salon.com/2023/04/02/overturning-roe-v-wade-increased-mental-health-distress-in-women-study-finds/

02.04.2023

Commentary

America Psychiatric Association

Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey

Journal of the American Medical Association

Julie Bindeman

mental health and abortion

mental health effects of abortion denial

Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers

United States

Health

Human Rights

The Importance of Mental Health Exceptions in Abortion Restrictions

Excluding mental health conditions is likely to have downstream consequences.

Posted March 27, 2023
By A. Alban Foulser, M.A., and Sophie Arkin, M.A., on behalf of the Atlanta Behavioral Health Advocates

The ban on abortions after six weeks following the overturning of Roe v. Wade is an enormous threat to the reproductive freedom and well-being of Americans (Rahman & Fellow, 2022). Many states allow exceptions to abortion restrictions for severe health risks or medical emergencies (Schoenfeld Walker, 2023); however, in states such as Georgia, Nebraska, West Virginia, and Florida, mental health conditions are explicitly excluded from qualifying as such medical emergencies (Tanner, 2022).

This denial of mental illness as a legitimate reason to obtain an abortion is inconsistent with the biopsychosocial model of medicine, which considers the role of mental health, biology, and sociocultural factors such as generational racial trauma, poverty, and food insecurity on physical health (Engel, 1977).

Continued: https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/outside-the-box/202303/the-importance-of-mental-health-exceptions-in-abortion-restrictions

27.03.2023

Research

A. Alban Foulser

Atlanta Behavioral Health Advocates

mental health and abortion

Myths about abortion and women’s mental health are widespread, experts say

By Sandee LaMotte, CNN
Sun July 3, 2022

It's an unfounded message experts say is repeated again and again: Having an abortion may damage a woman's mental health, perhaps for years.

“There's so much misinformation, so many
myths about abortion. Abortion will lead to substance abuse, depression,
suicidal thoughts; abortion is bad for your health; every woman is going to
regret it," said social psychologist Brenda Major, a distinguished professor
emeritus in the department of psychological and brain sciences at the
University of California, Santa Barbara.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/02/health/abortion-myths-mental-health-wellness/index.html

USA – Abortion Doesn’t Fuck Up Our Mental Health. Losing the Right to It Will.

"Forced parenthood only leads to continued cycles of trauma, as well as intergenerational trauma."

BY ROSEMARY DONAHUE
May 31, 2022

On Monday, May 2, a draft of a Supreme Court majority opinion vote written by Justice Samuel Alito to strike down Roe v. Wade was leaked. It hit the internet like a lightning bolt; though the law that preserves federal legal abortion hasn't officially been overturned yet, many have spent the last three weeks poring over the document's language, and its potential implications have brought the nation to yet another emotional boiling point.

In the draft, which aims to kick the issue of abortion back down to the state level, Alito writes, "Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences." But what, exactly, are these supposed consequences, and who has been suffering them? Anti-choice supporters often point to the supposed emotional harm caused by abortion, citing regret, depression, or even suicide as possible outcomes in its aftermath. While it's true abortion can be both an emotional topic and decision, this short-sighted argument isn't a valid cause to remove the choice from those who seek out this life-saving care.

Continued: https://www.allure.com/story/abortion-suicide-mental-health-link