Lies, Damn Lies, and BAD Science

The War on Truth and Science continues.

Today, another story about women regretting abortion.

A majority of American women who aborted their unborn babies say that their lives didn’t improve at all or refused to answer a question about any positive effects of aborting, a new study reports.

Roughly 54 percent of women said that their lives post-aborting weren’t any better than before they had their abortion, according to a study published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. Approximately 32 percent of women reported no significant positives from the decision to abort, while 22 percent did not respond to the question.

PDF here.

First thing: The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons sounds all legit, doesn't it? It is not. This is a group of whackadoodle conservative doctors who promote discredited BS like vaccines cause autism and abortion causes breast cancer.

Second thing: Lead author is our old pal, Priscilla Coleman. We'll get to her in a minute.

Third thing: Motive. This "study" is no doubt in response to several legit studies indicating that far from regretting abortion, a huge majority of women feel exquisite relief.

Ninety-five percent of women who have had abortions do not regret the decision to terminate their pregnancies, according to a study published last week in the multidisciplinary academic journal PLOS ONE.

Next thing: Look at the abstract, highlighted by me.



I think that's enough said.

Perfesser Coleman, also on Rewire's list of False Witnesses, aka liars for hire, came to our attention in 2012 when a paper of hers was published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, a venue not known for BAD (biased, agenda=driven) Science.

Here's the result.

Results: Women who had undergone an abortion experienced an 81% increased risk of mental health problems, and nearly 10% of the incidence of mental health problems was shown to be attributable to abortion.

Here's a real scientist, PZ Myers:

Those numbers are so extravagantly extreme that there ought to be alarm bells going off in your head right now, and the research had better be darned thorough and unimpeachably clean.

As it turns out, it isn’t. The author of the paper, Priscilla Coleman, is an anti-abortion advocate, and 11 of the 22 studies sampled for the meta-analysis are by…Priscilla Coleman. Methinks there might be a hint of publication bias there, something that has been confirmed statistically by Ben Goldacre.

And here's a bunch of scientists eviscerating her methodology, biases, and whatnot.

Maybe the good professor is learning something, though. Madly inflated numbers make even lay-people's alarm bells go off. The recent study's claims are much more modest. Let's see if it gets any traction in the mainstream press.

"Fake News" Is Old Hat in My World

So much about "fake news" in the regular news lately.

For example, today a poll was published revealing that 52% of Republicans "incorrectly" believe that Trump won the popular vote. (ICYMI, they're still counting but Clinton is 2.8 million votes ahead at the moment.)

As a long-time blogger about matters reproductive and, perforce, follower of Big Fetus™, I've been chuckling over the outrage some are expressing over the insane shit people will believe.

Big Fetus™ was the original fake news peddler.

Abortion causes breast cancer. Abortion causes post-abortion syndrome. Abortion causes infertility. Abortion causes substance abuse. Abortion causes child abuse. Abortion causes mental illness.

That last one has been debunked many, many times, most recently last week. In fact, not only does having an abortion NOT cause depression, the opposite is actually true. Being denied an abortion -- being FORCED to remain pregnant against one's will -- is actually a tad more harmful to one's mental well-being.

Who woulda thunk?

Here's another oft-repeated tweet from LieShite. Planned Parenthood sells "baby parts."

BREAKING: Senate committee refers Planned Parenthood to FBI for criminal investigation. https://t.co/fQbovd8jIe

— LifeSiteNews.com (@LifeSite) December 14, 2016

I saw the tweet again today. That lie was definitively debunked over a year ago. (The fetus freak illustrator needs an anatomy lesson.)

But it doesn't matter how often or how authoritatively these things get trashed. They are Zombie Lies.

In fact, there's a Big Fetus™ Fake News Industry devoted to creating and perpetrating fake news. We've reported on it a lot calling it BAD (biased, agenda-driven) Science.

Rewire, formerly RH Reality Check, has a terrific series called "False Witnesses" on the most prominent scientists willing to lie for fetus freak funding.

But here's a good thing: All this wailing about "fake news" seems to be making people pay more attention.

In France, politicians are debating a bill to ban anti-choice websites from spreading "false information" about abortion.

"Freedom of expression should not be confused with manipulating minds," Socialist Family Minister Laurence Rossignol said as the debate kicked off.

(Isn't that a refreshing notion?)

In even better news, fetus freaks are feeling the heat.

Dig the headline: "Facebook’s push to snuff out fake news poses threat to pro-life, traditional values reporting"

Translation: Facebook will stop hosting our lies! Waaaah!

Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday that the website had the responsibility to make sure it “has the greatest positive impact on the world.” He added that “with any changes we make, we must fight to give all people a voice and resist the path of becoming arbiters of truth ourselves.”

But Facebook’s partnership with Snopes, Factcheck.org, ABC News and PolitiFact to manage fact checking in this new initiative raises the question of who will determine what constitutes “fake news.” That leads then to the issue of whether information on Facebook will be censored to fit a particular worldview.

Um, yeah. That worldview is called reality.

Fetus freaks and their allies should create their own version of Facebook, where they don't have to be troubled by True Facts.

Oh wait. They did that when they got mad at Wikipedia for its "reality bias." They created Conservapedia, which, if you've never partaken, you need to.

Here are the first three sentences in the entry for abortion.

Abortion is the induced termination of a pregnancy,[1] often causing fetal pain. Abortion has two victims: the unborn child, and the mother who can never forget the loss she caused. Breast cancer rates increase by more than six times for women who have abortion, according to a recent study.

Of course that "recent study" is one of the oft-debunked ones.

So, I'd like to think that reality will battle back. That people who care about truth will win. But I really think that fake news is here to stay.

Because people who believe it cannot be argued with. They are not rational.

Fetal Gore Impact Study FAIL

Back here I promised to have at the "study" commissioned by the Fetal Gore Gang that tries to deliver on its long-standing claims that shoving gory images in people's faces does anything but make them recoil and occasionally toss chocolate milk.


Here is the announcement of the study's birth.

The study titled A Statistical Analysis on the Effectiveness of Abortion Victim Photography in Pro-life Activism was commissioned by the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform (CCBR). The CCBR developed a survey — administered by the independent company Blue Direct — which targeted the population of geographic areas in which CCBR campaigns had been run using abortion victim photography. With a sample size of more than 1,700 respondents, the survey results are sufficient to gauge public opinion within a five-point margin, the study claims.

Link to PDF for them's as like to look for themselves.

The PhD in need of a few bucks author of the report is Jacqueline Harvey. Among her credentials: U.S. Policy Analyst for Euthanasia Prevention Coalition International, team member at Charlotte Lozier Institute (anti-choice wannabe answer to prestigious Guttmacher Institute), and featured for-hire false witness.

'Nuff said there.

The independent company mentioned in the LieShite quote is Blue Direct.

It's based in Alberta and it pitches itself thus:

As a results oriented company, we’ll work with you while continuously testing and tweaking what we’re doing to ensure you get the best results.

I read the "study" (twenty minutes I'll never get back). My eyes were already crossed by the biased language and idiosyncratic categories when I got to page 20 and saw this table.



First, just try to make any sense of that. "Cultural impact" is a thing? Not in any sociology textbook I can find. Also "cultural impact" heading has some numbers, but the footer has some other numbers.

"Pro-life percentage points gained"? Is that like IQ points lost trying to make sense of this scientifically and statistically illiterate word salad?

And the "points gained" is 1.20% and the MOE of the study is acknowledged at 5%?

Moronic.

The take-away: This is why Real Science™ requires peer review.

The conclusion: Come back, Fetal Gore Gang, when you can get this kind of crap published in a real scientific journal.

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.

BAD Science in a (Twitter) Nutshell

The brouhaha over recent "explosive" data from Asia absotively proving the Abortion = Breast Cancer (ABC) link continues.

The Chinese study, eviscerated by Joyce Arthur here, fatally flawed by many scientific sins, but most egregiously (and obviously even to a lay-person) is Joel Brind's bland dismissal of the fundamental contradiction in it. (See Joyce's article for details.)

So what do lying liars do when challenged? Brind, the grandaddy of the ABC lie, doubles down.

The Bhadoria study of 320 breast cancer patients and 320 age and socio-economic status-matched healthy control women reported a 403% increased risk of getting breast cancer among Indian women who have had any abortions. Not only is this increase much larger than what had been reported in the Huang meta-analysis (44%) and by my colleagues and I in our worldwide meta-analysis of 1996 (30%), but it closely matches the 538% among Indian women reported earlier in 2013 by Dr. Ramchandra Kamath et al.

Also in 2013, Dr. S. Jabeen and colleagues reported a risk increase of almost 2,000% among women in Bangladesh!

Taken collectively, the studies from Asia should completely abolish any lingering credibility of the US National Cancer Institute’s politically correct” dictum that there is no ABC link.

From 30% to 44% to 403% to 538% to 2000% increase in breast cancer caused by abortion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(By the way, all reputable cancer research organizations categorically refute any such causation.)

The main flaw with all ABC BS studies is something called "recall bias". Google it and you'll find that it applies to all kinds of research in which patients are asked to remember their or their children's medical details, including birth defects, vaccination, Gulf War Syndrome, etc. etc.

But Brind et al. insist that recall bias is a conspiracy cooked up by pro-choice researchers and applied only to their own abortion "research".

So, as a non-scientist, I was going to go into all kinds of tedious detail about what recall bias is and isn't, when I thought to ask famed bullshit-detector PZ Myers to comment. After all, he has taken on the BAD (biased, agenda-driven) science of the anti-choice movement before.

He replied promptly.

.@fernhilldammit @CoyneoftheRealm Asian women must have exotic endocrinology, or it’s bullshit.

— PZ Myers (@pzmyers) January 18, 2014

And thus shortened this blog-post considerably. Thanks, PZ. (I'm sure our readers will thank you too.)

UPDATE: And here's James Coyne, author of a multi-part spanking of Priscilla Coleman for the equally dishonest abuse of statistics.

@fernhilldammit @pzmyers RE 2000% increase in breast cancer. dishonest abuse of statistics, http://t.co/A8aoS5SpBU

— James C.Coyne (@CoyneoftheRealm) January 19, 2014

BAD Science Debunked: Abortion Does NOT Cause Breast Cancer

Back in early December, when Babs Kay hitched her anti-feminism agenda again to yet another BAD (biased, agenda-driven) study purporting to link abortion and breast cancer again, DJ! took her on.

Joyce Arthur of Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada weighed in on the comments, promising a fuller analysis of the study.

Here it is. It is excellent.

The anti-choice movement has been making a lot of noise over a new study out of China, published in the journal Cancer Causes & Control, that purports to show a 44 percent increase in breast cancer risk for women who have had an abortion, with the risk increasing after each subsequent abortion. The study claims this may help explain the “alarming” rise in breast cancer in China over the past 20 years, which parallels the one-child policy introduced in 1979.

She proceeds to demolish its methodology, explaining the various kinds of known biases associated with this sort of study, including recall bias. Simply put, recall bias occurs when the two groups (the "cases," women who have or have had breast cancer, vs. the "controls", women who haven't) recall their medical histories differently. The "cases" are more likely to offer full details, while the "controls" may downplay their own abortion history. The problem is exacerbated by the level of abortion stigma associated in a culture.

She highlights this doozie.

Anti-choice activist Dr. Joel Brind has been promoting the ABC [abortion/breast cancer] association for over two decades. He claims that the Chinese study “neutralized” the recall bias argument. But Brind missed—or chose not to mention—that the journal article contained a confusing error, one that helped to hide the study’s own recall bias shortcomings. Early on, the study authors say:

The lack of a social stigma associated with induced abortion in China may limit the amount of underreporting.

But later in the study, the authors say:

[T]he self-reported number of IA [induced abortions] will probably be underestimated, as the stigma of abortion still exists in China, especially when a woman has more than two IAs. Therefore, this underestimation will inevitably create spurious associations between IA and breast cancer, especially for more IAs.

These two contradictory statements should never have gotten past the peer reviewers.

There are other fatal methodological flaws in the study and Joyce's article also links to other interesting work over the years and from several countries with widely differing abortion and breast cancer rates and attitudes towards abortion.

In short, many researchers have looked into the ABC link and it simply does not bear up under scrutiny.

As I've said many times before, this kind of bullshit needs to be called out every time it appears. It is unconscionable and irresponsible to appear to be using objective science to, as Joyce says, "to reinforce abortion stigma and frighten women."

And, of course, it's laughably hypocritical for fetus fetishists to wring their hands in pious concern for the well-being of women who have abortions when in other contexts, they delight in calling us "sluts" and "baby murderers".

So, while splendid analyses like this will change no anti minds, it should reassure women who have had or are contemplating having an abortion.

ABORTION DOES NOT CAUSE BREAST CANCER.

BREAKING! NO link between breast cancer and abortion

So, inquiring minds want to know -- how much (non) evidence will be enough? Probably no amount will ever satisfy the nutters, but here's yet another study that finds NO evidence of an association between induced abortion and breast cancer risk.

In 2004 the Collaborative Group on Hormonal Factors in Breast Cancer evaluated the worldwide epidemiological evidence on the possible relation between breast cancer and previous spontaneous and induced abortion ad found no link. The results, drawn from 53 studies, were published in the Lancet.

A new study confirms this data, that there is no link between abortion and breast cancer. The data come from a study of over 25,000 Danish women from the DIet, Cancer, and Health study. The women completed questionnaires and then were followed for an average of 12 years. This kind of study is probably the best way to look at two common and emotional charged occurrences, like abortion and breast cancer, because there is no recall bias. When something bad happens it is human nature to look back and try to assign causality, but collecting the data prospectively removes this element. The study was also well-powered to detect even a small increase, so another plus.

Link to abstract.

Enough.

I know, I know. With so much else to get exercised (or exorcised) over in public matters these days, it's kinda silly to retread old ground.

BUT I AM TOTALLY FUCKING SICK OF THIS.

Today, stenographer L. Stone reports on Maurice Vellacott's musings on Dr Morgentaler's death.

He trots out all the old lies and she dutifully notes them.

The release goes on to list the “physical complications” of abortion: breast cancer, cervical lacerations and injury, uterine perforations, bleeding, hemorrhage, serious infection, pain, and incomplete abortion.

It discusses “placenta previa” – the improper implantation of the placenta, in future pregnancies. It lists the psychological harms linked to abortion including increased risks of major depression, anxiety disorder, suicidal behaviors and suicide, and substance abuse and dependence.

“The pregnant women who get assaulted by their boyfriends, lovers and husbands because they refuse to get an abortion are among the often silent victims of Morgentaler’s unrestricted abortion regime. These women have been harmed immeasurably by Morgentaler’s unrestricted abortion regime,” it reads.

“Victims of sexual assault who are dragged to abortion mills by their abusers or pimps when pregnant cannot count on abortion providers to report these cases of suspected sexual assault. Many of these victims of sexual assault are minors. These women have been harmed immeasurably by Morgentaler’s unrestricted abortion regime.”

She even notes that Vellacott provides a handy list of 'more than a dozen links to articles and anti-abortion websites', not one of which she consulted.

As I just pointed out to her on twitter, I -- and many, many others -- have made it our business to counter this crap whenever it appears. And it appears that there is an endless taste for it.

This has been going on long enough. I've been cataloguing the bullshit for six years.

Here's our work on Vellacott's crap in particular, and on BAD (bad, agenda-driven) Science in general.

Others have also worked this beat for years. Here's Dr. Dawg from 2008.

And here's Alison on Vellacott again from the year of grace 2006.

Others, including the American Psychological Association, Canadian and US Cancer Societies, British Psychiatric Society, and on and on and on, have weighed in authoritatively on all the bullshit.

Enough. Call the fetus fetishists out or don't report on them.

UPDATE: Our pal and sister blogger on this beat (as well as others) Alison sends an informative link. Joel Brind, one of the old sweats of the Abortion Causes Breast Cancer canard, was debunked 21 fucking years ago. So why are we still dealing with this? Why isn't the MSM grown up enough to check their own bloody sources?

Hmmm?

Not Just for Theists Anymore

Collected for your edification from the non-religious corners of the internets and put up to go with the Woodworth WTF-freeverse-poetry-so-deep-it's-incomprehensible-Is-this-his-official-MP-page-paid-for-by-taxpayers?, I present the recording of an abortion debate held at the Texas Freethought Convention this year.

One reason I thought DJ! would be interested is because the pro-forced birth stance in the formal debate is being presented by a self-identified secular Canadian.

This Canadian, Kristine Kruszelnicki, who appears to be giving MP Woodworth not only fan props but a run for his forced-birth money by being solidly in the ranks of this Very Concerned Group Of Americans Who Kindly Let Canadians Join Up.

My biggest take away from what I've been able to scrape up on the 'scientific' defenses in play by these secularist vagina controllers is it's pretty much the religionist forced-birth ideology with the heavenly serial numbers filed off, complete with reinterpretations of science in what was termed American election night on Fox News as "math he does as a Republican to make himself feel better...?" (he being Karl Rove denying Obama took Ohio's EC votes).

The pro-women's-autonomy stance in the debate was taken by feminist ally Matt Dillahunty of the ACA, a gender irony he notes himself during the debate, but it seems it was his work that brought this hyperskeptical-evidence-thin secular pro-forced birth group to greater scrutiny in the non-theist community*.  He has since apparently stated he's willing to keep challenging secularist forced-birthers as often as they can match schedules.  Given that the ACA is also home to a strong core of feminists including Matt's partner, Beth Presswood, there could be some very interesting higher profile pushback coming up in the North American non-religionist communities.

I predict such pushback will garner greater cries of conflation between alleged immorality of atheism and support for legal, unfettered abortion.  Be interesting to see how that plays in Canada.

I dunno.  Is a non-religionist who still stumps for incubator status of women, a He-ist or an Aiiieeeist?

*bonus points.  DJ!'s blogroll biologist on matters embryological, PZMyers of Pharyngula blog, snaps like a dry twig and makes an appearance at the end of QnA.

Woodworth and 'Modern' Science

Aww. Isn't this cute? MP Stephen Woodworth, he of Woodworth's Wank, is still in the public eye he has grown addicted to.

But uh-oh, look at this.

Under the heading Woodworth garnering all the wrong attention Joseph McNinch-Pazzano writes:

After Kitchener-Centre Member of Parliament Stephen Woodworth’s failed attempt to reopen the abortion debate in Canada, you might have thought he would gracefully exit the spotlight of hot button social issues. Regrettably, this is not the case.

On Oct.7, Woodworth was a featured guest for an event in Quebec where he appeared alongside Michel Lizotte, an outspoken advocate who believes that gay people can become straight if they simply choose to do so.

Woodworth was criticized in the House of Commons, but has not yet responded to the criticism nor made a public statement disowning what Lizotte advocates.

At the event, Lizotte reportedly delivered a lecture on sexual re-orientation.

Lizotte advocates for gays to learn “how to be freed from thoughts, attractions or unwanted homosexual behavior while taking the path of heterosexuality.”

One of two things could explain Woodworth’s silence.

The MP could actually believe the psychologically-debunked nonsense that Lizotte trumpets.

Or, Woodworth could oppose what Lizotte advocates but refuses to publicly state his disagreement—which is equally detrimental to gay rights.

McNinch-Pazzano goes on to demolish Lizotte's nonsense. Then winds up:

In his attempt to reopen the debate about when life begins, Woodworth stated that “our 400-year-old definition of a human being says a child does not become a human being until the moment of complete birth, contrary to 21st century medical evidence.”

If Woodworth wants to invoke his conceptions of modern medicine in the abortion debate, he must give equal time to the notion in the gay rights debate.

Woodworth cannot simply turn a blind eye to an activist who is living in 1970s psychology textbooks.

Among the Kitchener-Centre constituents that Woodworth purportedly represents are young men and women who are looking for guidance and acceptance of who they are.

If Woodworth does not have the decency to come out in strong opposition to Lizotte and his views, then perhaps he should reconsider whether he espouses the necessary values to represent the people of Kitchener-Centre.

Or, perhaps better yet, the people of Kitchener-Centre should tell Woodworth that they would like to have a full-time representative instead of one who seems to be more interested in advocating for the social issues that keep him in the national spotlight.

So much for 'modern' science when it doesn't toe the Vatican Taliban line, eh, Woody?

If you gotta lie. . .

. . . something is seriously wrong with your cause.

LifeShite reports that an old pal of DJ's and father (snerk) of the current BAD (biased, agenda-driven) Abortion Science campaign, David Reardon, is at it again.

A new study of the medical records for nearly half a million women in Denmark reveals significantly higher maternal death rates following abortion compared to delivery. This finding has confirmed similar large-scale population studies conducted in Finland and the United States, but contradicts the widely held belief that abortion is safer than childbirth.

Funny that. It's the complete opposite finding from a study published in January this year that, not surprisingly, concluded that giving birth is 14 times more lethal than abortion.

Dr. Elizabeth Raymond from Gynuity Health Projects in New York City and Dr. David Grimes of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, found that between 1998 and 2005, one woman died during childbirth for every 11,000 or so babies born.

That compared to one woman of every 167,000 who died from a legal abortion.

The researchers also cited a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which found that, from 1998 to 2001, the most common complications associated with pregnancy -- including high blood pressure, urinary tract infections and mental health conditions -- happened more often in women who had a live birth than those who got an abortion.

I say 'unsurprisingly' because obviously women who give birth are pregnant a lot longer than women who terminate, so one factor is simply odds.

The researchers on the real sciencey study are quick to point out that both outcomes are very safe, but that to alarm women considering abortion with bogus health risks does no one any favours.

I was going to debunk this new study but thought I'd tweet the link to James C. Coyne, BAD science watcher, who very ably demolished Priscilla Coleman's latest.

Dr Coyne directed me to this blogpost of his in which Reardon makes a rather startling admission.

Did Priscilla Coleman write her review with the intention of building a literature to restrict access to abortion? David Reardon is Coleman's co-author on ten of the articles included in her meta-analysis and according to the NY Times is know as the "Moses of the anti-abortion movement." In an article, he announced his intention rather explicitly:

For the purpose of passing restrictive laws to protect women from unwanted and/or dangerous abortions, it does not matter if people have a pro-life view. The ambivalent majority of people who are willing to tolerate abortion in "some cases" are very likely to support informed consent legislation and abortion clinic regulations, for example, because these proposals are consistent with their desire to protect women. In some cases, it is not even necessary to convince people of abortion's dangers. It is sufficient to simply raise enough doubts about abortion that they will refuse to actively oppose the proposed anti-abortion initiative. In other words, if we can convince many of those who do not see abortion to be a "serious moral evil" that they should support anti-abortion policies that protect women and reduce abortion rates, that is a sufficiently good end to justify NRS efforts. Converting these people to a pro-life view, where they respect life rather than simply fear abortion, is a second step. The latter is another good goal, but it is not necessary to the accomplishment of other good goals, such as the passage of laws that protect women from dangerous abortions and thereby dramatically reduce abortion rates.

The intent of this BAD science is -- explicitly -- to make women fear abortion.

They admit they are simply creating doubts and raising fears.

This is NOT science. This is propaganda.

A WIN for Good Science

It has taken a while but finally the Right Thing ® may be about to happen. A 2009 piece of scientific bullshit journal article by one of DJ!'s fave BAD scientists, Priscilla Coleman, has been so thoroughly debunked as to be retracted.

Earlier this year, an analysis by leading researchers completely discredited a key article used as "evidence" by the state of South Dakota and anti-choice supporters in their arguments to the 8th Circuit Federal Appeals Court supporting a law forcing doctors to tell women seeking to terminate a pregnancy that abortion is linked with higher risks of suicide and depression.

The researchers also called on the editors of the Journal of Psychiatric Research (JPR) in which the article was originally published in 2009 to retract the article, a step now under consideration by the editors, one of which cited the article's "serious deficiencies."

Now if only the British Journal of Psychiatry would woman/man up and retract her most recent piece of shit.

And kudos to the real scientists who persist in investigating and destroying BAD Science. Real scientists like the ones at the new and desperately needed Bad Science Watch. Its purpose is to promote good science in Canadian public policy.

Canada needs real change. Bad Science Watch is here to make that change a reality.

We are creating what will be Canada’s most effective and consistently successful force countering bad science, strengthening consumer protection regulation, and advocating for sound science in making important societal decisions.

Please support our work. Help us achieve the change our country needs by donating to Bad Science Watch, and joining the fight, through our Action Alerts mailing list.

The Science of Personhood

Because I was getting no action on my oft-posed question to supporters of Woodworth's Wank, aka M312, I decided to help them out.

I went looking for the sort of experts fetus fetishists would want to hear from and found this *science* page at Personhood Canada. (BTW, it is a project of Alliance for Life Ontario, the gang behind the Merkin anti-abortion ads currently showing on CTV.)

I was doing my debunking thing, when I hit the bit from the 40+ year-old pamphlet from New Zealand and got that déjà vu all over again feeling.

Yup, I had LMAO'd at it more than two years ago. But, despite the strong evidence that it hasn't changed -- why leave in that lame-o reference if they actually had anything better? -- I'm going to do it again in the current context of M312. (Also. I had already found a buncha links.)

Here's the page, unaltered, except broken up.

There is no question about when human life begins.

In the widely used medical textbook, The Developing Human, Clinically Oriented Embryology, 6th Edition, Moore, Persaud, Saunders, 1998, states on page 2 that “The intricate processes by which a baby develops from a single cell are miraculous .... This cell [the zygote] results from the union of an oocyte [egg] and sperm. A zygote is the beginning of a new human being ....” On page 18 this theme is repeated: “Human development begins at fertilization ....”

From a website at University of New South Wales, the first text listed is indeed Moore, Persaud, et al., but not surprisingly, the 2011 edition, which is not the edition cited. Does the newer edition not contain the key words -- 'baby' and 'new human being' -- so ardently desired by the fetus fetishists? Dunno, do we?

Dr. Jerome Lejeune, “Father of Modern Genetics” and discoverer of the cause of Down’s Syndrome, stated, “To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place, a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion . . . it is plain experimental evidence.”

‪Jérôme Lejeune‬ is who they say he is and if he said that, big surprise. He was Catholic and tight with the Polish Poop.

Afterward, Dr. Lejeune regularly traveled to Rome to meet with the Pope, to attend meetings of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and to participate in other events, such as the 1987 Synod of Bishops. The Holy Father wanted to name Jérôme Lejeune as the president of a new pontifical academy that was dear to his heart: the Pontifical Academy for Life[1]. Dr. Lejeune painstakingly drafted its bylaws and the oath of the Servants of Life that each member of the Academy must take. He wanted the Academy, founded on February 11, 1994, to be a true center of contemplation and action to expand the culture of life.

But the doc died before he could get things really rolling. He's up for sainthood though.

Now the howler from New Zealand, from a pamphlet intended for new parents, mind.

"The unborn baby is alive from the first moment of conception of a single egg and a single sperm." N.Z. Health Department: Pamphlet No 83 Your New Baby (Government Printer) 1969.

Next one is kind of interesting.

"Dr. McCarthy de Mere, medical doctor and law professor of the University of Tennessee, testified: "The exact moment of the beginning of personhood and of the human body is at the moment of conception."

Googling the good doctor nets one a bunch of links to fetus fetishist sites citing that very quote. And searching the University of Tennessee's site gets one bupkis. Total fabrication?

Then they trot out poor conflicted Bernard Nathanson, the Abby Johnson of his day. (Blogpost coming on Ms Johnson.) Note helpful paraphrase in square brackets.

Former abortionist and founder of the National Abortion Rights Action League, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, said "It is atrocious for anyone now to maintain that a fetus [unborn child] is simply a lump of meat, or something insignificant or an unprotectable life."

From Wiki:

Nathanson grew up Jewish and for more than ten years after he became pro-life he described himself as a "Jewish atheist". In 1996 he converted to Catholicism through the efforts of an Opus Dei priest, Rev. C. John McCloskey.

And he was married four times. Some issues there.

The most breathtaking piece of chutzpah is citing Dr Evil Incarnate, Alan Guttmacher.

In 1933, abortion advocate and former medical director of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Dr. Alan Guttmacher, wrote, “We of today know that man is born of sexual union... and that the embryo is formed from the fusion of two single cells, the ovum and the sperm. This all seems so simple and evident to us that it is difficult to picture a time when it was not part of the common knowledge.” And in 1961 Dr. Guttmacher wrote, “Fertilization, then has taken place; a baby has been conceived.” If a man who has dedicated his life to promotiong contraception and abortion can acknowledge the scientific facts of when life begins, why can’t we?

Dr Guttmacher also said:

"No woman is completely free unless she is wholly capable of controlling her fertility and...no baby receives its full birthright unless it is born gleefully wanted by its parents."

The page ends with some links to videos of THE MIRACLE of mammalian fetal development.

So, some of these people are dead and others are, er, difficult to locate. The dates are not terribly recent, which is the supposed point of this whole Wank -- to modernize an OLD law.

But that's all they got, people.

Bupkis.

BAD Journalism Makes Science BAD

Babs Kay has her pearls in a death grip again. And gives us a dandy example of how journalists *cough* either deliberately or simply stupidly misread reports resulting in biased, agenda-driven (BAD) science info.

First she provides a link to a recent study that finds increased risks of psychiatric problems for children born prematurely, or pre-term birth (PTB).

Then, gripping those pearls, she goes on to SHRIEEEK that abortion is a MASSIVE risk factor for PTB and rattles off a scary bunch of numbers from a study 'proving' it.

Interestingly, she does not provide a link to that study.

But commenter KentsKorrections does provide a link then proceeds to take Babsy out behind the woodshed in two comments.

He -- rather patiently I thought -- points out the fatal flaw in the MASSIVE numbers she cites.

BTW Odds ratios are NOT a measure of risk but of effect size (sorry for Wiki but it was easier to find a simple explanation for the issue).

"Odds ratios have often been confused with relative risk in medical literature. For non-statisticians, the odds ratio is a difficult concept to comprehend, and it gives a more impressive figure for the effect.[13] However, most authors consider that the relative risk is readily understood.[14] In one study, members of a national disease foundation were actually 3.5 times more likely than nonmembers to have heard of a common treatment for that disease - but the odds ratio was 24 and the paper stated that members were ‘more than 20-fold more likely to have heard of’ the treatment.[15] A study of papers published in two journals reported that 26% of the articles that used an odds ratio interpreted it as a risk ratio.[16]

This may reflect the simple process of uncomprehending authors choosing the most impressive-looking and publishable figure.[14] But its use may in some cases be deliberately deceptive.[17] It has been suggested that the odds ratio should only be presented as a measure of effect size when the risk ratio can not be estimated directly.[18]"

I am 100% behind providing as much information as we can to patients no matter what the procedure as everyone should be made aware of the risks. However it should be CLINICALLY RELEVANT. This is why we have doctors and not journalists deciding what information is relevant to disclose.

Good to see more volunteers stepping up in the BAD Science Watch.

UPDATE: Another snarky and informative comment from the appropriately named smarterthanyou.

You would think a crack journalist like Kay might take the time to look at a real consent form for abortion before she writes about the subject.  These consent forms are often much more comprehensive than your typical hospital consent form for any other procedure, and give women way more information than they typically get if continuing a pregnancy. (Nobody ever told me that peeing and pooping could be problematic and post-natal psychosis could be in my future. But I digress.)  

Why does she not name the studies she claims definitively prove her claims?  Consent forms typically state that which is proven and accepted in the medical community as fact. Consent forms may even stretch a bit and mention possible risks when the jury is still out. But in service to the truth and accuracy is helping their patients assess risk, they don't jump on every bad science claim that comes along, unlike the brilliant Postmedia writers such as Kay, Jonathan Kay, Fr. de Souza, Margaret Sommerville, Naomi LaKritz and Susan Martinuk.These anti-choice writers love to exploit every possible claim that abortion will cause every bad thing that ever happens to you after without question. They never saw an anti-abortion study they didn't like. They never question why these claims are not supported by any major medical organization like the SOGC, CMA, Canadian Cancer Society, or Health Canada. Anti-abortion studies have become an industry. Any academic who starts spitting them out can get instant play from the likes of the above mention writers, who are eager to jump on any bad news about abortion that supports their belief that all women should be forced to continue all pregnancies all the time, because they think so.

ALSO: KentsKorrections says both at NP and here in comments that he (she?) tried to post an argument-destroying link that wasn't allowed.

Bad Science Watch

While we here at DJ! are not scientists, we try to track down and expose BAD (biased, agenda-driven) Science, especially in the area of reproductive rights.

Today, great news! Real scientists are organizing to promote good science at a time when science, rationality, and evidence-based policy making are pretty much at war with the ignoramuses running this country.

Meet Bad Science Watch. Here's their press release:

Toronto, ON – Monday, July 9th, 2012 – Bad Science Watch, a new Canadian science advocacy group, has issued a challenge to the Canadian government: stick to the science in the development and implementation of important policy decisions. This group will work diligently to ensure Canadians are protected from exploitation by unscrupulous organizations peddling useless and potentially harmful products and services.

Bad Science Watch strives to serve as a key Canadian lobbying organisation, dedicated to challenging lax consumer protection measures and fighting for the rights of Canadians to accurate information when making decisions which affect their health, prosperity and well-being.

“The Canadian public has been poorly-served by a government which displays little respect for objectivity and science”, said Bad Science Watch Executive Director, Jamie Williams. “Consequently, weak consumer protection regulations allow the sale of products and services that don’t work, and Canadians are exploited by the unscrupulous or misinformed.”

Bad Science Watch will announce details of its first projects in the coming weeks. Among them: targeting bogus food-intolerance testing in Canadian drugstores, and an intensive investigation into the state of the Canadian anti-WiFi lobby.

“Bad Science Watch will fill a unique role as the only national organization in Canada with a focus on strengthening consumer protection against bad science,” explained Chair of the Board of Directors, Michael Kruse. “With a strong commitment to the most professional and transparent non-profit practices, our experienced Board of Directors, Steering Committee, and Executive are striving to create the most effective and consistently successful force countering bad science in Canada.”

Canadians interested in volunteering and donating to Bad Science Watch can find more information at www.badsciencewatch.ca.

If Woodworth's Wank, aka M312, passes, we'll need all the voices of sanity and reason we can round up.


h/t

BREAKING! LifeShite Lies!

In addition to the scourges of breast cancer, infertility, and insanity, tireless fetus fetishists scientists spinners have discovered yet another tragic sequela of abortion!

Abortion causes violence against women.

Except. Well. No. They've got it exactly bass-ackwards. (emphasis mine)

Because of this basic disregard for women’s well-being, I worried that anti-choicers would immediately start angling to find a way to use this study to try to bully abused women out of getting abortions those women deem necessary.  And sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. Life News deliberately lied about the research to make it seem that the abortion came before the abuse for these women, implying that the women brought violence onto themselves by choosing abortion.  In reality, of course, the abuse predated the abortion in all of these cases, which were taking the histories of women getting abortions.  By implying that the violence came after the abortion, Life News joins forces with wife beaters everywhere by using the threat of violence to control women’s bodies.

And this is why anti-choice claims to be “pro-woman” are so laughable.  You cannot be pro-woman while using the threat of domestic violence to control women’s reproductive choices.  You cannot be pro-woman while telling women lies about domestic violence and pregnancy in hopes they make choices that will usually end up putting them in more danger.  You cannot be pro-woman when you distort the realities of abortion and domestic violence in ways that will, if you’re successful, lead perhaps to fewer abortions but certainly towards more beaten and even murdered women.

The LifeShite article also lied about the participation of Planned Parenthood; it was part of the study. Its chief operating officer was an author, for cripes' sake.

LifeShite also said that PP doesn't screen for these situations or for 'coerced abortions'.

From a credible link:

Studies such as this can help portray abused women in a more positive and empowered light, said Penny Dickey, a study author and Planned Parenthood’s chief operating officer.

She said Planned Parenthood has done brief general screenings of its patients for about the last 10 years, and it will continue to “in an effort to figure out how to provide help for patients who are suffering, so that they know where to go and from whom to seek help.”

I have a feeling this is going to grow legs among the hypocritical 'pro-woman/pro-life' gang. Mrozek will be on it any second.

(Yeesh. Do NOT google images for 'wife beater'.)

h/t for RH Reality Check link to JJ

More BAD Science

A commenter on yesterday's BAD Science post raised a new abortion 'complication'.

Abortion and autism.

I knew about the autism and vaccine, specifically measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR), fraud but an abortion and autism link was new to me.

I got googling.

Found something from a couple of years ago that attempts the feat and look who's propagating it. Big Nursie.

The allegation is abortion is linked because the vaccines use 'dead babies'. SHRIEEEK!

Indeed. And the study in question, the one being cited here, briefly summarizes the other studies that have been done that have pretty much demonstrated that there is NOT a link between MMR and autism. NOT. Not is. Is not. No link. No link mentioned in this study.

No link shown anywhere else. The only link is in the feeble and demented brain of “blogger Jill Stanek.” Jeesh.

So the MMR – autism link is dead, so the fetal tissues don’t really matter, but what about that? Are dead babies used to prepare the MMR vaccine?

Well, no. Human cell lines have provided some of the substrate for one part of the MMR vaccine (the “R” part) in the past, some of that from old non-abortive tissue lines, some from abortive tissue lines. But there were religious objections for using the abortive tissue lines, so now, if I understand correctly, we use … cow fetuses and human tissues that are not from abortive material. Which is probably inferior (but I’m not sure if it makes a difference in this case)

Lies, fabricated links, bad information, scare tactics. What are they getting out of this dishonesty?

I found another from the infamous Elliot Institute linking (in a roundabout way) autism to abortion.

Is it biologically plausible that prior maternal induced abortions elevate a newborn baby’s autism risk? In a word, yes. This is because of two mechanisms — preterm birth (very preterm and extremely preterm) and raised parental age at delivery. Six significant studies report that prior induced abortions boost extremely preterm birth risk (under 28 weeks’ gestation).

Extremely preterm babies have about 25 times the autism risk as do full-term (at least 37 weeks’ gestation) babies. The older the parents are at delivery, the higher the autism risk. In a 2001 study of French women, Dr. Henriet reported that French women with more than one prior induced abortion had 2.4 times (i.e. 140% higher) the risk of maternal age over 34 at delivery compared to women with zero prior induced abortions.

The 'six significant studies' links to a PDF. What the hell. I downloaded and got 'Does Induced Abortion Account for Racial Disparity in Preterm Births, and Violate the Nuremberg Code?'

Seriously.

It was published in the journal of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, which bills itself as 'A Voice for Private Physicians since 1943'.

Here's what Wiki has to say:

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is a politically conservative American non-profit organization founded in 1943 to "fight socialized medicine and to fight the government takeover of medicine." The group was reported to have approximately 4,000 members in 2005, and 3,000 in 2011. Notable members include Ron Paul and John Cooksey; the executive director is Jane Orient, a member of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.

AAPS publishes the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (formerly known as the Medical Sentinel). The Journal is not indexed by mainstream scientific databases such as the Web of Science or MEDLINE. The quality and scientific validity of articles published in the Journal has been criticized by medical and scientific authorities.

Or, more succinctly, here's RationalWiki:

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons is a small group of "conservative" quacks, cranks and fundamentalist zealots which likes to rail against such timeless evils as abortion, vaccination and the idea of universal health care coverage.

So, add the Association and, in particular, its journal to our list of BAD Science purveyors.

PSA: BAD (biased, agenda-driven) Science

This article is from 2006, but the phenom is not only still going on, it's getting worse. B.A.D. (biased, agenda-driven) science.

Creating B.A.D. science is simple. In the anti-abortion movement, a handful of scientists with conservative political agendas first publish articles, studies and commentaries in scientific journals, generating scientific "knowledge" about the dangers of abortion with unsubstantiated claims using problematic approaches.

In the 1980s, they tagged onto a scientific debate about abortion and breast cancer that appeared in the journals beginning in the 1950s. By repeatedly making the same claims in a variety of publications, they create the appearance of a body of scholarship that can be used to support a political goal of presenting apparently legitimate scientific evidence to influence the abortion debate. Then B.A.D. scientists create their own advocacy groups which in turn inspire new grassroots organizations with an agenda based on the scientists' claims. Newcomers join online or at the local level, and a movement with serious policy influence is born.

Here at DJ!, we cover the BAD science beat as well as we can.

Now, since the Abortion Debate Nobody But Fetus Fetishists Want, aka Woodworth's Wank, aka Motion 312, is already raging on Twitter and Facebook, and since the Fetus Lobby threatens to unleash 'up-to-date' science on it, herewith as a public service, a list of organizations to watch for. (I may do individuals later.)

Every single one of these is a propounder of biased, agenda-driven 'science' advancing the usual bogus claims: abortion causes breast cancer, mental illness, and infertility; fetal pain; Post-Abortion Syndrome; pregnancy by rape is rare and therefore an allowable exemption, etc.

In no particular order:

A newish one: World Expert Consortium for Abortion Research and Education or WECARE (awwww) for short. It's fronted by our old pal, Priscilla Coleman, Perfessor of Home Ec and Slut-Shaming. Also among its members is Elard Koch who authored a fraudulent study of abortion in Chile claiming there is no illegal abortion there and nobody dies from it.

Another newish one: Modelled on the esteemed Guttmacher Institute, which was once the research arm of Planned Parenthood, Charlotte Lozier Institute calls itself the 'education and research arm of the Susan B. Anthony List'.

A Canadian one: The deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research.

An old and venerable one: Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, featuring war-horses Joel Brind, Angela Lanfranchi, John T. Bruchalski and William L. Toffler.

One that has the honesty to call itself 'pro-life': Association for Interdisciplinary Research in Values and Social Change.

Another one with a cute acronym: MARRI Research Marriage and Religion Research Institute, which, as its title suggests is mostly into 'traditional' marriage and the horror of divorce, but also dips into the evils of contraception.

One of the grand-daddies and coiner of 'Post-Abortion Syndrome', Vincent Rue of the Institute for Pregnancy Loss, which still has no web presence.

And finally, another grand-daddy, The Elliot Institute, starring the 'Moses of the post-abortion movement'David Reardon.

There are probably more that I haven't run across yet. If you know of one, please add it to the comments and I'll update.

When fetus fetishists cite 'science' and 'studies', check to see if the paper or authors are affiliated with or funded by any of these.

If so, the work is BOGUS.

ADDED: From choice joyce in the comments: Pro-Life OB/GYNs. It doesn't seem to be a funding organization, but links to many of the usual suspects.

ADDED: Another totally bogus journal. Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.

Debate These Liars?

Not only is Maurice Vellacott -- like all fetus fetishists -- an opportunistic creep, he is also a lying liar.

From his press release:

Scientific research is revealing an ever-younger age at which children in the womb feel pain. Dr. Steven Zielinski, an internal medicine physician from Oregon, is one of the leading researchers into fetal pain. He has testified that a child in the womb could feel pain at “eight-and-a-half weeks and possibly earlier.” (“Pro-Lifers Welcome First Fetal Pain Abortion Ban Lawsuit,” LifeNews.com, Sept. 1, 2011)

Note tenses: present, present, past.

I'd never heard of the fellow despite having been on the Bad Science of Fetal Pain beat for quite a while.

So I googled 'Steven Zielinski fetal pain' and got this featuring a flock of fetus fetishist sites with nary a credible source in sight.

Next, Google Scholar.

On the first page, I see only three citations -- all from the mid 1980s.

And that 'has testified'? Look. 1986.

Next, google for 'Steven Zielinksi'. Lots of them. Only one I could find is a doctor from Oregon.

Dr. Steven Zielinski specializes in internal medicine and legal medicine in Umatilla, Oregon.

'Legal medicine'? New jargon for 'whoring for the Fetus Lobby'?

That look like a 'leading researcher into fetal pain' to you? Making important discoveries in the present tense? Or the present century?

Now, consult a real scientist. P.Z. Myers explains fetal brain development.

Past sins by MV on that sciency-facty stuff here.

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.