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The authors evaluated empirical research addressing the relationship between induced abortion and women's mental health. Two issues were addressed: (a) the relative risks associated with abortion compared with the risks associated with its alternatives and (b) sources of variability in women's responses following abortion. This article reflects and updates the report of the American Psychological Association Task Force on Mental Health and Abortion (2008). Major methodological problems pervaded most of the research reviewed. The most rigorous studies indicated that within the United States, the relative risk of mental health problems among adult women who have a single, legal, first-trimester abortion of an unwanted pregnancy is no greater than the risk among women who deliver an unwanted pregnancy. Evidence did not support the claim that observed associations between abortion and mental health problems are caused by abortion per se as opposed to other preexisting and co-occurring risk factors. Most adult women who terminate a pregnancy do not experience mental health problems. Some women do, however. It is important that women's varied experiences of abortion be recognized, validated, and understood.

T h e centrality of motherhood to the definition of the adult female is characterized in the form of a mandate which requires having at least two children and raising them well. T h e processes mandating motherhood are discussed. A direct attack on the motherhood mandate is seen as basic to eliminating sex-role stereotypes, mythologies, and sex-typed behavior. Given the social and cultural forces that propel women into motherhood-either by choice or by chance-a thorough analysis of the purpose of childbearing and childrearing in a changing society is basic to understanding persistence and change in sex-typed behavior.N o volume devoted to an analysis of persistence and change in sex-typed behavior would be complete without special consideration of motherhood. As William ONeill has observed, "experience has demonstrated that the formal barriers to women's emancipation-votelessness, educational and occupational discriminations, and the like-are less serious and more susceptible to change than the domestic, institutional, and social customs that keep women in the home" (cited in Blake, 1974, p. 137).For what purpose are women kept in the home? To bear and rear children. It is the primacy of this role of mother-along with the auxiliary role of wife-that must be appreciated if change and resistance to change in sex-typed behavior are to be understood.Special thanks go to Garrett Hardin for writing Mandatory Motherhood:The T m e Meaning of "Right to Life" (1974) and providing the inspiration for this analysis of the motherhood mandate. T h e author would like also to thank

Psychological research is increasingly involved in debates regarding abortion. While recognizing the diversity of ethical and moral issues intertwined with abortion, the American Psychological Association (APA) has focused its involvement on psychological factors, most recently by appointing an expert panel to review the literature on psychological effects. This article notes the history of APA involvement and reports on the panel's conclusions. It presents evidence that abortion is not likely to be followed by severe psychological responses and that psychological aspects can best be understood within a framework of normal stress and coping rather than a model of psychopathology. Correlates of more negative responses following abortion are also discussed.

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