Bad Science, Part Umpty-Seven

Well, looky here. Not only has another of Priscilla Coleman's papers been shot to shit by real scientists, even the editor of the journal in which it appeared agrees.

A study purporting to show a causal link between abortion and subsequent mental health problems has fundamental analytical errors that render its conclusions invalid, according to researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and the Guttmacher Institute. This conclusion has been confirmed by the editor of the journal in which the study appeared. Most egregiously, the study, by Priscilla Coleman and colleagues, did not distinguish between mental health outcomes that occurred before abortions and those that occurred afterward, but still claimed to show a causal link between abortion and mental disorders.

The study by Coleman and colleagues was published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research in 2009. A letter to the editor by UCSF’s Julia Steinberg and Guttmacher’s Lawrence Finer in the March 2012 issue of the same journal details the study’s serious methodological errors. Significantly, the journal’s editor and the director of the data set used in the study conclude in an accompanying commentary that “the Steinberg-Finer critique has considerable merit,” that the Coleman paper utilized a “flawed” methodology and that “the Coleman et al. (2009) analysis does not support [the authors’] assertions.”

Sadly, lying liars like Maurice Vellacott who desperately want to recriminalize abortion will continue to rely on these hucksters for their 'science'.

And, no doubt, these are the people who will be invited to testify at Stephen Woodworth's Standing Committee on Government-So-Small-It-Fits-In-Women's-Uteruses Abortion.

Which is why sane people should just decline any such invitation.