As more women globally turn to medications to have abortions, a University of Maryland-led study out today in JAMA Psychiatry found no evidence that a first medication or procedural abortion caused an increase in mental health medication use.
Using records from the Danish health registry, researchers looked to see if a person’s first medication or procedural abortion was followed by filling a mental health prescription for the first time, as a way to measure whether abortion method affects mental health. The studied group had never previously filled a mental health prescription.
The study tracked prescriptions filled for a variety of psychiatric conditions, such as depression and anxiety, following a person’s first abortion. From one-year post-abortion and beyond, the researchers found no statistically significant increase in fulfillment of mental health medication when adjusting for multiple tests. More than five years afterwards, filling such prescriptions decreased when adjusting for multiple tests.
“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, lead author of the study and an associate professor in the Department of Family Science at UMD’s School of Public Health.
Steinberg and her Danish colleagues analyzed thousands of Danish health records of women and girls, aged 12 to 38, who had an abortion by medication or procedure in their first trimester of pregnancy and between the years 2000 and 2018. Denmark has provided abortions through its nationalized health care since legalization in 1973.
Researchers compared prescriptions from one year before the person’s abortion with prescriptions claimed in the first year, one to two years afterwards, two to five years afterwards, and over five years afterwards.
The study looked at all mental health medications, treating a wide variety of conditions including sleep disorders and ADHD, as well as medications that specifically target anxiety and depression.
Steinberg said the research improves understanding of the association between abortion method and mental health. The study did not investigate social factors like cultural stigmas around abortion, which could impact the mental health of a person after having an abortion, and are likely to vary by place and culture, she added.
Within the year after a first abortion, the data showed a slight increase in psychiatric prescription use. However, after applying a common statistical adjustment necessary when analyzing a high number of variables and comparisons, researchers found the risks in that first year were no longer statistically significant.
The study used data from the Danish population, where over 94% of people are white and where the national culture, legal framework and access to abortion and health care differs from the United States.
“While the study focused on Danish data, the results are an important rebuttal to claims that abortion – particularly medication abortion – harms mental health,” Steinberg said.
Steinberg co-led a 2024 study examining whether mental health disorders, measured by psychiatric diagnoses, increased after a medication or procedural abortion, finding neither abortion method increased risk of psychiatric diagnoses in the short or long-term.
JAMA Psychiatry published an accompanying oped discussing Steinberg’s 2026 study and the association between abortion and mild psychiatric illness, available here.