Abortion Bans = More Women Dead from Suicide

A new study finds that when women are forced to carry pregnancies they don't want, more women end their lives

Photo by Ben Blennerhassett on Unsplash

A just-released study in Jama Psychiatry has a stunning conclusion: Restricting access to abortion care increases suicide rates among reproductive-age women.

This study looked at targeted regulations of abortion providers, or TRAP laws, which were pre-Dobbs efforts to regulate abortion providers out of existence. Now, obviously, anti-abortion states can ban the procedure, and at least 13 of them do. But before this summer, TRAP laws were the primary tool the anti-abortion movement used to restrict abortion access. TRAP laws didn’t ban abortion, they just made it harder to run an abortion clinic, and in turn, harder for women to access abortion care.

Even those laws — again, laws that were far, far less harsh than the total abortion bans we’re seeing now — ended in women’s deaths when they were enforced. Researchers found that the enforcement of TRAP laws was associated with a 5.8% higher rate of suicide among reproductive-age women, compared to suicide rates in the same state before TRAP laws were enforced.

This is the first study that has looked at whether anti-abortion laws impact suicide rates. The answer is yes.

We already know that far too many pregnant women die violent deaths in the US. Homicide is the leading cause of death for pregnant and postpartum women, and many more pregnant or postpartum women are murdered every year than die of physical causes related directly to their pregnancies. Most of those women are murdered by their partners.

But a stunning number of women also die by suicide during or shortly after pregnancy. Suicide accounts for roughly 20% of postpartum deaths, and is among the leading causes of maternal mortality.

This study, though, is the first to look at whether anti-abortion laws actually drive suicides among reproductive-age women.

We know that suicidal thoughts often increase in women women are pregnant and postpartum. We know that that suicide risks increase with major life stressors, as well as with episodes of depression, anxiety, and psychosis. And we know that pregnancy is not only among the most stressful times in a person’s life, but can also be a trigger for depression, anxiety, and psychosis.

Given all of this, how could abortion bans not impact suicide rates?

It’s hard to think of something more devastating than being forced to carry a pregnancy to term against your will. There is nothing in life — nothing — as fundamentally life-altering and undoable as having a child. There is nothing an average person does to their bodies that is as extreme and physically onerous; there is nothing an average person does in their lives that is as permanent. Most other major decisions can be walked back: you can get divorced, declare bankruptcy, sell a house, rehome a pet. Having a child is forever, for you and the new person you’ve brought into the world. There are no backsies or do-overs.

That anyone would force another person to go through with a life-altering decision of that magnitude is frankly just sick. But it’s also predictable that forcing women to risk their health and in the best-case scenario fundamentally alter their lives, change their bodies forever, and bring a new person into the world who they will be connected to and responsible for forever has ruinous mental health effects.

Having a child should be, and often is, a joyous life event. But like so many other of life’s best moments, the joy gets pretty well sucked out when the moment is forced. A wedding can be a spectacularly happy day when the couple is in love and dedicating their lives to each other; it can be pretty damn depressing and scary when the marriage is a forced one. A slice of chocolate cake is nice, but I don’t think any of us wants to have dessert shoved down our throats. For many people, sex is among life’s greatest pleasures; rape, on the other hand, is a horrific crime not just because it’s violent, but because it takes something that can be incredibly fun and gratifying and connective when entered into enthusiastically and turns it into something sadistic, painful, and cruel.

This is all true for having a child as well: Just as a rapist takes something pleasurable and turns it into an act of sadistic abuse, abortion bans — and those who use their power to ban abortion — take one of the most extraordinary things human beings can do and turn it into an act of misogynist cruelty.

Add on top of that cruelty the fact that the thing being forced — pregnancy — radically changes your hormone levels and reshapes your body and brain in all kinds of novel ways. Many women with badly-wanted pregnancies find themselves surprisingly depressed, anxious, or even struggling with psychosis or suicidal ideation. Of course women whose pregnancies are forced are going to struggle with these same physical and psychological changes, plus the profound stress of being forced into something that is going to change your life dramatically — and often, end life as you knew it. For women who can choose to continue pregnancies, those changes are often welcomed, or at least understood as trade-offs. For women who want to end their pregnancies but can’t, we know that many of their fears do in fact come true: Compared to women who were able to end unwanted pregnancies, women who are forced to carry to term against their will are more likely to stay poor or fall into poverty; they are more likely to be trapped in abusive relationships; their existing kids wind up worse off; they are more likely to struggle with depression and anxiety; they are more likely to die of pregnancy-related causes.

And they are more likely to die by suicide.

This new study does not look at the impact of total abortion bans. But if restrictions that didn’t ban abortion but simply made it harder to get accounted for a more than 5% uptick in suicide rates, what do you think will happen in states where abortion is now a crime?

There is an even greater maternal suicide crisis coming down the pike. And it’s largely thanks to the “pro-life” movement.

xx Jill