{"id":306219,"date":"2024-02-02T16:59:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-02T22:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=306219"},"modified":"2024-09-20T16:16:53","modified_gmt":"2024-09-20T21:16:53","slug":"facts-pro-life-laws-mental-health-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/facts-pro-life-laws-mental-health-women\/","title":{"rendered":"Get the Facts: Did recent pro-life laws cause mental health problems among women?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p>(<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/corner\/no-recent-pro-life-laws-did-not-cause-mental-health-problems-among-women\/\">National Review<\/a>) Last week, the\u00a0<em>Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)<\/em>\u00a0published a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/jamanetwork.com\/journals\/jama\/fullarticle\/2814133\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-testid=\"standard-link\">study<\/a>\u00a0claiming that the recent passage of pro-life laws resulted in higher rates of both anxiety and depression among women. Specifically, it claims that in states with trigger laws, both the leak of the\u00a0<em>Dobbs<\/em>\u00a0decision and the decision itself worsened mental health among women of childbearing age. This study was covered by mainstream media outlets including\u00a0<em>Time<\/em>,\u00a0<em>Forbes<\/em>, USNews.com, NY1.com, and Yahoo!<\/p>\n<p>There is far less here than meets the eye. First, there are a number of methodological problems with the study. It obtains emotional-health data from a national survey that had only a 6 percent response rate. That is problematic. It is certainly possible that individuals more upset about the\u00a0<em>Dobbs<\/em>\u00a0decision were more likely to respond, which would skew the results.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, to gauge the impact of pro-life laws, the study calculated changes in the emotional health of people living in 13 trigger states \u2014 states where strong pro-life laws would automatically take effect if\u00a0<em>Roe v. Wade<\/em>\u00a0was overturned. The study then compared changes in emotional health there with the mental health of people living in the 37 other U.S. states without trigger laws.<\/p>\n<p>However, laws protecting preborn children did not take effect in all 13 trigger states post-<em>Dobbs.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0The study considers Utah a trigger state, but a law that would have protected preborn children was in effect for less than a week there before it was struck down by the courts. Similarly, the study considers Wyoming a trigger state, even though a strong pro-life law never took effect in there post-<em>Dobbs<\/em>. Furthermore, Alabama, Kentucky, and West Virginia all quickly enforced policies to protect preborn children after\u00a0<em>Dobbs<\/em>, but the\u00a0<em>JAMA<\/em>\u00a0study does not consider them \u201ctrigger\u201d states.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ: <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/rape-related-pregnancy-research-questionable\/\"><em>Is the new \u2018research\u2019 on rape-related pregnancies reliable?<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Taking the results at face value, the study found that the\u00a0<em>Dobbs<\/em>\u00a0leak and the\u00a0<em>Dobbs<\/em>\u00a0decision resulted in only marginal changes in the mental health of women of childbearing age. The study relies on a twelve-point scale to measure anxiety and depression. According to that scale, both the\u00a0<em>Dobbs<\/em>\u00a0leak and the\u00a0<em>Dobbs<\/em>\u00a0decision worsened the mental health of women of childbearing age (18\u201345) by less than a sixth of one percentage point in trigger states \u2014 hardly a dramatic change. Interestingly, the results indicate that men aged 18\u201345 in trigger states experienced a larger decrease in mental health than did women of the same age cohort residing there.<\/p>\n<p>There are far better ways to analyze fluctuations in mental health than by relying on a survey with a low response rate. Data on suicides, suicide attempts, and appointments with mental-health professionals would be far better ways to analyze changes in the psychological well-being of women. That said, as is the case with most post-<em>Dobbs\u00a0<\/em>abortion research, the authors and their allies in the mainstream media are primarily interested in placing pro-life laws in a negative light. As always pro-lifers would do well to stay the course.<\/p>\n<p><em>Editor&#8217;s Note: This article was published at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/corner\/no-recent-pro-life-laws-did-not-cause-mental-health-problems-among-women\/\">National Review<\/a> and is reprinted here with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/tell-congress-stop-the-doj-from-targeting-pro-life-americans\/?utm_campaign=doj_petition&amp;utm_medium=lan_website\"><b><i>The DOJ put a pro-life grandmother in jail for protesting the killing of preborn children. Please take 30-seconds to TELL CONGRESS: STOP THE DOJ FROM TARGETING PRO-LIFE AMERICANS.<\/i><\/b><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(National Review) Last week, the\u00a0Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)\u00a0published a\u00a0study\u00a0claiming that the recent passage of pro-life laws resulted in higher rates of both anxiety and depression among women. Specifically, it claims that in states with trigger laws, both the leak of the\u00a0Dobbs\u00a0decision and the decision itself worsened mental health among women of childbearing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":575,"featured_media":263741,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[20722,7077,4],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Get the Facts: Did recent pro-life laws cause mental health problems among women?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A\u00a0Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)\u00a0study\u00a0claims that recent pro-life laws caused more anxiety and depression. 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