Suicidal ideation. This has been identified as a particularly high risk for women after they have had an abortion.

A 2019 study, using a very large sample, looked at outcomes for women who had aborted an unwanted pregnancy compared with women who aborted a wanted pregnancy and both were compared to women who gave birth to their baby. The researchers found that the risk of having suicidal thoughts, which is a serious mental health problem, was increased by 138% for all abortions in the sample, with an increased risk of 94% for unwanted pregnancies and 244% for wanted pregnancies.

Of course not every woman who has an abortion will have suicidal ideation afterwards. But it is important to dispel the myth that women are only experiencing “a bit of a struggle” after an abortion.

Substance abuse. The same 2019 study found that substance abuse was another high risk for women following an abortion, second only to suicide ideation.

Other studies have found that:

• Women who decide to give birth to their baby are at less risk of substance abuse than those who abort their baby.
• Among pregnant women who had previously lost a baby by abortion, stillbirth or miscarriage, only abortion was associated with an increased risk of substance abuse during their current pregnancy.