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This story was originally published by The 19th.

Abortion bans may be driving more teenage girls to seriously contemplate suicide — regardless of whether they are pregnant, a new study finds.

Already, teenage girls are at greater risk of serious depression and suicidal ideation, which means considering or planning suicide. Some public health officials suggest the rates of depression may be at crisis levels: Federal data published in 2024 found that the year prior, 52.6 percent of high school girls said they felt persistently sad or hopeless — close to double the share of high school boys who said they felt similarly. About 27.1 percent of girls said they had seriously considered suicide, compared to 14.1 percent of boys. The federal data doesn’t account for nonbinary students.

Now, a new study published last week in JAMA Psychiatry, suggests that abortion bans — which have already been linked to higher rates of infant mortality and pregnancy complications, including pregnancy-related death — could be making things worse, with teen girls in states with bans experiencing higher rates of suicidal ideation than those in states without.

“There is this very concerning increase that is unique and specific among adolescent females in ban states. We need to pay more attention to what’s going on with them,” said Wendy Sheldon, the paper’s lead author and a scholar at the........

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