Junk science is cited in abortion ban cases. Researchers are fighting the ‘fatally flawed’ work
Researchers are calling for the retraction of misleading anti-abortion studies that could influence judges in critical cases
The retraction of three peer-reviewed articles prominently cited in court cases on the so-called abortion pill – mifepristone – has put a group of papers by anti-abortion researchers in the scientific limelight.
Seventeen sexual and reproductive health researchers are calling for four peer-reviewed studies by anti-abortion researchers to be retracted or amended. The papers, critics contend, are “fatally flawed” and muddy the scientific consensus for courts and lawmakers who lack the scientific training to understand their methodological flaws.
While some papers date back to 2002, the group argues that now – in the post-Roe v Wade era – the stakes have never been higher. State and federal courts now routinely field cases on near-total abortion bans, attacks on in vitro fertilization and attempts to give fetuses the rights of people.
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
-Isaac Asimov
The root cause is religion. It feeds on people's fear, naivete, and gullibility to exercise control.