In Denmark, more than 94 percent of the population is white, and since 1973 the country has provided abortions through its nationalized health care system. That decades-long track record made Danish health records a goldmine for researchers trying to answer a question that has long caused worry: does having an abortion harm a woman's mental health?
The answer, according to a new study from the University of Maryland, is no. Researchers analyzed thousands of Danish health records from 2000 to 2018, tracking women and girls between the ages of 12 and 38 who had their first abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy. They looked at whether these women later filled prescriptions for mental health medications, including drugs for depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, and ADHD.
The findings, published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, were clear. One year after an abortion and beyond, there was no statistically significant increase in mental health medication use when the researchers accounted for the high number of comparisons they were making. Even more striking: five or more years later, prescription use actually decreased.
"Counter to a common perception around abortion, the results showed neither medication nor procedural abortion caused the use of psychotropic medications, which suggests that neither method increases risk of mental health issues," said Dr. Julia Steinberg, the study's lead author and an associate professor in the Department of Family Science at the University of Maryland's School of Public Health.
Within the first year after an abortion, the raw data did show a slight uptick in psychiatric prescription use. But after applying a standard statistical adjustment that accounts for the many variables being tested, that small increase disappeared. It was no longer meaningful from a scientific standpoint.
The study looked at both medication abortions, which use drugs to end a pregnancy, and procedural abortions, which involve a medical procedure. Neither method was linked to worse mental health outcomes.
Dr. Steinberg co-led a similar study in 2024 that examined psychiatric diagnoses rather than prescriptions and found the same pattern: neither abortion method increased the risk of mental health disorders in the short term or the long term.
The researchers acknowledged that their study used Danish data, where cultural attitudes, legal frameworks, and healthcare access differ from the United States. They also noted they did not investigate social factors like stigma, which could affect mental health differently depending on where someone lives. Still, Dr. Steinberg called the results "an important rebuttal to claims that abortion—particularly medication abortion—harms mental health."
For the millions of people worldwide who have medication abortions, and for the healthcare providers who offer them, the findings add to a growing body of evidence that this choice does not come with the mental health risks that some critics have long claimed.