False Witnesses: A Rogues' Gallery of BAD Scientists

Everyone who writes or cares about reproductive justice, women's rights, science, etc. should bookmark this amazing feat of research, Reproductive Health Reality Check's False Witnesses project.

Here at DJ! we have an abiding interest in BAD science in general but in particular as it is applied to abortion and women's health.

"BAD" stands for biased, agenda-driven, or science-for-hire. And it is everywhere.

Here's RH Reality Check's explanation.

First Big Tobacco, then climate change denial, and now, the anti-choice movement.

The issues might have changed, but the techniques now widely used by conservatives to distort science and, with it, public policy, remain the same.

They create nonprofits, staffed with die-hard ideologues, and set about producing and promoting bogus science, to build the illusion of dissent or doubt over conclusions drawn by peer-reviewed scientific or medical research. They develop their own “research findings” to suit their ideological views. Then they deploy scare tactics, all with the goal of passing laws that suit their agenda.

And anti-choice has been at it for decades now. They've even got "institutes" and sciencey-sounding "research groups." Some we've tried to profile here but RH Reality Check has really dug and got the goods.

In the False Witnesses Gallery are 14 "scientists" for hire, some familiar to us, some not so much. They're mostly USian. Click on their photos to find out more.

The format for each profile is fabulous. Each is divided into sections: "Signature Falsehood," "Setting the Record Straight," "Role Within the Anti-Choice Movement," and "Blatant Errors," as well as their connections, credentials, and the amount of dough they've raked in with their obligingness. And they are all connected, all cite each other's publications.

In short, hours of fun reading.

And while there are no Canadians among them, these liars regularly show up at Canadian anti-choice events and venues.

Like Martha Shuping, who caused a fuss recently when she was invited to speak at Memorial University, and Angela Lanfranchi, who is Maurice Vellacott's go-to gal for bullshit on the "abortion causes breast cancer" canard.

Very gratifying for us here at DJ! is the inclusion of our fave Perfesser of Home Economics and Slut-Shaming, Priscilla Coleman, whose work has been so thoroughly and utterly dismantled it's a wonder she has the gall to show her face. Here's the RH Reality Check research on her.

We have one addition. There is a disreputable gang of Canadians operating under the banner of the Deveber Institute. Small and pretty lame, but all ours.

So, bookmark and browse.

And congratulations and grand merci to RH Reality Check.

Fishing Trip Nets Unexpected Prize

RH Reality Check has performed a great service in documenting the total waste of time perpetrated by the US House RAPEublicans' latest fishing expedition.

In May, Republican members of two congressional committees—the House Judiciary Committee and House Energy and Commerce Committee—wrote letters to the departments of health and attorneys general in all 50 states, asking for thousands of pages of information about how each state monitors and regulates abortion.

“By now you are surely aware of the trial of Kermit Gosnell, who is charged with the serial murder of infants, the murder of a female patient, and other felonies committed in the operation of his abortion clinic in Philadelphia,” wrote committee chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and Trent Franks (R-AZ), chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice, in the letter sent to all state attorneys general. “We are seeking to find out if state and local governments are being stymied in their efforts to protect the civil rights of newborns and their mothers by legal or financial obstacles that are within the federal government’s power to address.”

With the implied threat -- 'and if you are not sufficiently stymying women seeking abortion and the medical staff who serve them, we'll help you with that'.

The RAPEublicans were seeking to bolster with facts -- FACTS! -- their federal bill banning all abortions in all 50 states after '20 weeks post-fertilization'. (The bill has zero chance of passing in the Senate.)

Well, that didn't work out very well. In fact, I believe this is a sterling example of being hoist on one's own petard.





RH Reality Check obtained these documents from the various states and analyzed them. The data base is here.

An analysis of these documents shows that congressional Republicans will find no support for their arguments in favor of new restrictions on abortion care in the evidence presented by the states. In particular, to the extent that anti-choice advocates claim that women are being put at risk by abortion services, these documents—from the very state entities charged with overseeing and regulating abortion—show the contrary. They show that abortion in the United States is highly regulated and overwhelmingly safe.

Lots of details at the link and in the data base. RH Reality Check plans further analyses and reports.

I want to highlight just one of their findings: the myth of the 'born-alive' fetuses.

On the issue of infants being “born alive” after a botched abortion, Pennsylvania was the only state that reported such conduct. That was in the case of Kermit Gosnell, who has been convicted of murder.

The “born-alive” fetus is a favorite theme of the anti-choice movement, which has perpetuated the claim that a large number of viable fetuses are born alive after failed second- and illegal third-trimester abortions as a way of shifting public opinion on abortion. This claim has been heavily criticized by public health experts who say this is an exceedingly rare occurrence and is in any case already covered by existing law and regulation. Nearly 90 percent of all abortions occur within the first trimester of pregnancy, the majority of these before nine weeks. In short, the vast majority of abortions in the United States occur at the embryonic stage, prior to the fetal stage. Since only a small share of all abortions are late second-trimester (after 20 weeks), and since third-trimester abortions are illegal in all but the most exceptional circumstances, it is not surprising that state records show that the myth of “born-alive” fetuses is, indeed, a myth.

Doncha just love it when dimwits try to be smart? It just about always blows up real good. On them.

ADDED: Media Matters for America demonstrates how thoroughly MSM in the US has bought into the lies surrounding the 20-week ban.