Since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutionally protected right to abortion in the Dobbs decision, 13 states have enacted total abortion bans, often with narrow and infrequent exceptions (e.g. medical emergency). Prohibiting — and criminalizing — abortion care has profound impacts on people who can become pregnant and their families, including increased maternal and infant mortality, strained provider-patient relationships and impaired pregnancy care, financial distress, and more.
These harms disproportionately affect already-vulnerable populations, particularly non-Hispanic Black patients, families carrying a pregnancy with a congenital anomaly, people living in poverty, and those in Southern states with the fewest options. With such severe impacts, it’s no wonder a growing body of research has examined the impact of bans on mental health.
The psychological impact of abortion bans
A national retrospective analysis found significant increases in anxiety and depression symptoms among reproductive-age women in states with post-Dobbs bans — and, tellingly, no parallel rise among men. Among reproductive-aged women nationally, suicide rates also rose.
As with the other harms, the psychological burden disproportionately impacts women with histories of prior sexual violence or abuse, rural communities, those with limited financial resources, and the family unit itself — including the child born of a denied abortion and their siblings.
It’s worth stating plainly, because the myth is so persistent: having an uncoerced abortion does not increase the risk of mental health conditions compared with carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term. The Turnaway study found the opposite, that women denied an abortion reported more anxiety and lower self-esteem and life satisfaction, which improved if they were later able to access abortion care.
Vulnerable adolescents are often left out of abortion ban discourse
Further, abortion bans may disproportionately impact adolescents and young adults, many of whom can’t even vote on these policies. Adolescents often have the least legal autonomy over their own reproductive decisions, cannot reliably access confidential care, and face the steepest financial and practical barriers to abortion. Even before Dobbs, youth were paying attention: in 2022, surveyed 14- to 24-year-olds were aware of potential abortion policy changes and expressed fear, anger, and sadness. They worried about what an unexpected pregnancy would mean for their futures, autonomy, and financial stability.
Those fears showed up in the data. A subsequent analysis of national youth survey data found a significant 4.3% increase in suicidal ideation among female high-school students, diverging clearly after state-level total bans took effect, alongside a trend toward more suicide attempts (3.2% to 3.9%).
What can healthcare providers do?
Most physicians willing to connect patients with abortion care identify their lack of referral knowledge as a critical barrier. Additionally, the majority of women experiencing pregnancy loss and/or abortion do not discuss its psychosocial impacts with their provider, and 75% are not provided mental health resource recommendations. If bans are increasing distress and suicidality, then accessible suicide prevention and mental health services must be part of abortion and pregnancy care. We need to close that gap between willingness and informed action.
Physicians should get familiar with both the medical and non-medical resources within their reach and screen proactively for mental health and support needs — before a patient is in crisis, not after. For young patients specifically, this means building suicide-risk screening into schools and primary care visits, and keeping their barriers to both abortion and mental health care squarely inside the reproductive-rights conversation.
The American Psychiatric Association has published a resource document for psychiatrists navigating care in the post-Dobbs era, and the American Academy of Family Physicians compiled emotional support services in its “Options for Unintended Pregnancies” article. Many non-medical community-based resources can also provide high-quality services for those considering abortion or impacted by it, such as the All-Options toll-free phone line offering nonjudgmental peer counseling for anyone considering or affected by abortion; users describe it as filling real gaps in the formal health system.
Abortion bans are a mental health issue. The sooner we treat them like one, the better we can care for people who have been impacted by them.
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