Efforts to prohibit abortion based on harms to women's health: The manipulation of evidence to support overturn of Roe versus Wade

There has been a significant increase in the number of state legislatures considering outright bans on abortion. Arguments in favor of such legislation include claims that abortion harms women's mental and physical health. Specifically, supporters argue that abortion leads to an increased risk of suicide, depression, substance abuse, and breast cancer, and both violent and accidental death. These claims are based on little or no scientific evidence: the conclusions of well-performed studies are inaccurately reported; studies with serious methodological flaws are touted as definitive; and some claims are made with no supporting evidence. Assertions have also been made that women are incapable of providing informed consent for abortion, going so far as to state that “[i]t is so far outside of the normal conduct of a mother to implicate herself in the killing of here own child” that “[e]ither the abortion provider must deceive the mother into thinking that the unborn child does not yet exist” or “must encourage her to defy her very nature as a mother to protect her child.” The suggestion that women are incapable of making informed decisions about their reproductive health care creates a dangerous slippery slope in which women's conduct during pregnancy could be subject to ever-increasing state control. This presentation will examine the evidence, and lack thereof, supporting the claims that abortion should be prohibited based on alleged harms to women's health. In addition, the positive public health benefits of access to safe and legal abortion will be discussed.