Washington Times: Is abortion a mental health risk?

This morning, the Washington Times published my article on the American Psychological Association Mental Health and Abortion Task Force.
In it, I call for the APA to start over on this topic. One study formed the essential basis for the Task Force conclusions. I do not agree that the Gilchrist study is better than the 2005 Fergusson study which did demonstrate a reason to be cautious. However, even if one concludes Gilchrist is best, that does not mean it is sufficient or adequate to make a dogmatic conclusion. By calling one study, the 1995 Gilchrist study, “the best scientific evidence,” the task force has misled the public by portraying the best evidence as being good enough evidence.

4 thoughts on “Washington Times: Is abortion a mental health risk?”

  1. And what is dogmatic about that statement Warren?
    sounds to me, warren, that because they didn’t give the result you wanted you are attacking them. The report points out that the existing research is not sufficient to reach a conclusion that abortion causes significant mental health problems. The studies you (and others) have implied do show this have not been able to distinguish whether the correlations found are with abortion or unwanted pregnancy in general.

  2. @ken:
    “The best scientific evidence published indicates that among adult women who have an unplanned pregnancy, the relative risk of mental health problems is no greater if they have a single elective first-trimester abortion or deliver that pregnancy,”

  3. I asked this before but never got an answer. what is the “dogmatic conclusion” in the APA report?

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