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Serious Flaws in Study
Purporting to Show No Depression Risk for Post-Abortive Teens "A skimpy, superficial assessment" Part One of Three Good evening, and thanks once again for reading Today's News & Views. Part Two tracks the efforts of euthanasia advocates to use advertising. Part Three is an encouraging story about how adult stem cells are being used to treat Sickle cell. Over at National Right to Life News Today (www.nationalrighttolifenews.org), you learn about the incredible growth of "early voting" and about a "Medical Detective Story." Please send your comments on Today's News & Views and National Right to Life News Today to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha By Liz Townsend
A study in the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute's journal, Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, claims to show that adolescents who have abortions have no increased risk of depression or low self-esteem. The study, published not in a peer-reviewed journal but in a publication of the former research arm of Planned Parenthood, attempts to contradict recent studies that have shown the mental health risks of abortion. However, Priscilla K. Coleman, Ph.D., an expert on abortion and its effects on women, has identified numerous flaws in the study that "seriously compromise" its findings, beginning with its small sample size. The study data was taken from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which surveyed adolescents in grades 7–12 beginning in 1994–95, asking the same group questions every few years. The journal article's authors, Jocelyn T. Warren and S. Marie Harvey of Oregon State University and Jillian T. Henderson of the University of California, San Francisco, extracted answers that girls gave in 1994–1995, 1995–96, and 2001–02. The authors concluded that only girls who had depression or low self-esteem before their abortion had those problems afterward. "The only predictor of depression ... was prior depression," they wrote. In addition, "Low self-esteem prior to the pregnancy was the only significant predictor of low self-esteem." They also attempt to use their results to denigrate laws requiring counseling before abortion that includes a full discussion of risks and alternatives. "[L]aws mandating that women considering abortion be advised of its psychological risks may jeopardize women's health by adding unnecessary anxiety and undermining women's right to informed consent," according to Warren et al. Coleman, associate professor of human development and family studies at Bowling Green State University, told NRL News that the authors' conclusions are based on only 69 adolescent girls who had abortions. "This sample doesn't have the statistical power to predict events," she said. The study's authors admit that their sample size was too small, but made broad conclusions based on the results anyway. "The lack of association between abortion and our outcomes could reflect other factors, including insufficient sample size to detect an effect," they wrote. In addition, these 69 girls were compared to 220 girls who had gotten pregnant but who did not have abortions--which included girls who had a live birth, stillbirth, or miscarriage. Coleman said that a much better comparison group would have been girls who had unintended pregnancies but who delivered their babies. Beyond the sample size, the responses used as measures of depression and low self-esteem were inadequate, according to Coleman. The determination of depression was based on an abbreviated nine-item scale and the self-esteem measure included only four questions. "It is a skimpy, superficial assessment," she said. Coleman has worked with the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health data as well and knows that it can be used in a much more thorough and comprehensive way. "In a study I published in 2006, using the same data and incorporating unintended pregnancy delivered as the control group, I found significant associations between abortion history and marijuana usage, having received counseling for psychological or emotional problems, and sleep difficulties," she said. "Seeking professional counseling services is a much more valid measure of psychological distress than abbreviated self-report measures, one of which is merely 'predictive of depression.'" Coleman told HealthDay News that about 10 percent to 20 percent of women who have abortions "are seriously negatively affected." The data "show that some women are traumatized," she said. "It can be a life-changing negative decision for a lot of women. They deserve up front to know what the risks are." |
