{"id":282612,"date":"2023-01-03T10:34:50","date_gmt":"2023-01-03T16:34:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=282612"},"modified":"2023-01-02T12:39:35","modified_gmt":"2023-01-02T18:39:35","slug":"study-pro-life-suicide-rates-not-credible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/study-pro-life-suicide-rates-not-credible\/","title":{"rendered":"Study claiming pro-life laws lead to higher female suicide rates provides no credible evidence"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

(National Review<\/a>)\u00a0The journal JAMA Psychiatry<\/em> recently published<\/a>\u00a0a study analyzing how state-level abortion policies affect suicide rates among young women. It analyzed 43 years of state-level suicide data from the United States and purportedly found that limits to abortion increase suicide rates among women ages 20\u201334. A number of mainstream media outlets have reported on the study including NBC News, the Guardian, and Yahoo! News.<\/p>\n

Despite the media\u2019s uncritical coverage of this study, there is much less here than meets the eye. In fact, the study fails to provide credible evidence that pro-life laws or pro-life policies increase the incidence of suicide among young women. This is for several reasons.<\/p>\n

First, the study analyzes state-level suicide rates of women aged 20\u201334 from 1974 to 2016. During that period, abortion was legal in all 50 states and, with maybe a couple of short-term exceptions, abortion facilities were operating in all 50 states. Overall, there were not large disparities in the availability of abortion across states.<\/p>\n

URGENT:\u00a0<\/b>For every dollar given, 34 more people can be reached with the truth about abortion. Will you join us in this life-saving work as a monthly donor today?<\/i><\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Second, the study analyzes the impact of only one category of state-level abortion policy, abortion-facility regulations, on the suicide rates of young women. These regulations, called \u201cTRAP laws,\u201d sometimes result in the closure of abortion facilities. However, TRAP laws do not have a consistent impact on state abortion rates.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the JAMA Psychiatry<\/em> study did not analyze abortion rates, abortion ratios, or the number of abortion facilities. Any of these metrics would have provided a better measure of the availability of abortion. Also, the study did not analyze the impact of pro-life laws, such as limits on Medicaid coverage of abortion, which have a consistently negative impact on state abortion rates.<\/p>\n

Third, the study failed to hold constant the state-level trends in suicide rates. Female suicide rates have been gradually increasing since the early 2000s, so it is possible that increases in female suicide rates after the abortion-facility regulations went into effect were due to that upward trend.<\/p>\n

In reality, good research shows that abortion increases the risk of suicide and that pro-life policies reduce suicide rates. A study in the British Medical Journal<\/a><\/em> in 1996<\/a> analyzed data from Finland and found that women who obtained abortions had a suicide rate three times higher than that of the general population. A study in Economic Inquiry<\/a><\/em> in 2012<\/a> study found that pro-life parental-involvement laws result in statistically significant reductions in suicide rates among teenage girls. Unfortunately, such studies typically receive scant attention in mainstream media.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Note: This article was published at National Review<\/a> and is reprinted here with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(National Review)\u00a0The journal JAMA Psychiatry recently published\u00a0a study analyzing how state-level abortion policies affect suicide rates among young women. It analyzed 43 years of state-level suicide data from the United States and purportedly found that limits to abortion increase suicide rates among women ages 20\u201334. A number of mainstream media outlets have reported on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":575,"featured_media":282613,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[7077,4],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nStudy claiming pro-life laws lead to higher female suicide rates provides no credible evidence<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A much-touted study fails to provide credible evidence that pro-life laws increase female suicide rates. 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