Published May 5, 2025
Abstract
Recent legal challenges to state abortion laws argue that abortion is necessary to protect women’s mental health. This paper reviews the relevant research literature on the relationship between abortion and various mental health outcomes. Despite multiple studies hypothesizing that abortion may be therapeutic for pregnant women with mental health conditions, there are no empirically established mental health benefits of abortion. There is, however, substantial empirical evidence that abortion worsens mental health outcomes for at least some women, particularly those with pre- existing mental health conditions. While the nature and degree of mental health risks from abortion remains a disputed question, we offer some conclusions that find strong support in the existing research literature.
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Aaron Kheriaty, MD, is a Fellow & Director of the Program in Bioethics and American Democracy at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is a physician specializing in psychiatry and author of three books, including most recently, The New Abnormal: The Rise of the Biomedical Security State (2022).
