Small mental health signal after abortion fades with closer analysis

Clinical takeaway: Reassure patients that this large cohort found no clear, sustained increase in first-time psychotropic medication use after medication or procedural abortion. Continue routine screening and address mental health symptoms based on individual clinical need.

Claims that abortion—particularly medication abortion—harms mental health continue to shape public debate and policy. As medication abortion becomes more common, clinicians need reliable evidence to counsel patients without overstating small or uncertain associations.

Researchers followed 67,390 Danish females aged 12 to 38 years who had a first first-trimester abortion between 2000 and 2018. About half underwent medication abortion and half procedural abortion; 29.6% redeemed a first psychotropic medication prescription during follow-up.

Compared with the year before abortion, first-time use of any psychotropic medication was 10% higher in the first year after medication abortion and 9% higher after procedural abortion in fully adjusted models. However, these small increases no longer met statistical significance after correction for the study’s multiple comparisons.

No increased risk was observed 1 to 2 years or 2 to 5 years after either abortion method. More than 5 years after abortion, first psychotropic medication redemption was 15% lower after medication abortion and 17% lower after procedural abortion compared with the preabortion year.

One finding remained after multiple-testing correction: first antianxiety medication redemption was 26% higher 2 to 5 years after medication abortion. Yet among patients at 8 weeks’ gestation—when abortion method was more likely to reflect patient preference—neither method was associated with increased psychotropic, antidepressant, or antianxiety medication use.

“Evidence from the current study may not support” claims that medication abortion harms mental health, the authors wrote, while calling for additional research to replicate and explain the findings.

Source: Steinberg JR, et al. (2026 July 22) JAMA Netw Open. Medication and Procedural Abortion and Risk of Psychotropic Medication Use