Abortion rights under threat.

Reproductive health is critically important. Allowing women choice over when and with whom to have children is the most fundamental of human rights, and something in the UK we have got used to. Yet despite progress, access to family planning is still far from universal, and is now going backwards.

Abortion Rights

Abortion rights in particular are under threat all over the world. The recent Dobbs vs Jackson Women’s Health Organisation ruling that the US constitution does not confer a right to abortion has paved the way to States level laws which make having or performing an abortion, or even helping to drive to an abortion clinic a criminal offense. Some very bad science has helped their cause. How?

Research presented to the US Supreme and other courts claimed to show that women who have abortions suffer more depression and other mental health problems than those who continued with unplanned unwanted pregnancies. These papers were deeply flawed but have been used by religious extremists to change the law which applies to all. As recently reported in the BMJ, four stand out.

Bad Science

The first paper was published in the BMJ in 2002, authored by David Reardon. The ‘research’ was titled “Depression and unintended pregnancy in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth: a cohort study”.  It seems  the author is an electrical engineer, anti-abortion activist and director of research at the Elliot Institute – an abortion advocacy group, all undeclared as a conflict of interest. It was immediately criticised for poor methodology which negated the findings, but sadly only partially corrected and not retracted. I can only conclude the peer reviewers were asleep and failed to check even the source.

Another 2005 paper in the Journal of Anxiety Disorders made the same mistakes to claim that abortion directly harms the mother. But when pre-existing levels of anxiety and domestic violence were considered any association between abortion and depression disappeared. There have been no corrections and again it has not been retracted. 

In 2009 a paper in the Journal of Psychiatric Research yet again linked abortion to various mental health issues, even though that the association between abortion and mental health problems were  once again linked to the reasons women needed an abortion, not to abortion itself. This is not rocket science!

Then meta-analyses come along. They again found in error that abortion significantly increases mental health problems. One meta-analysis was published by the same author of many of its constituent papers which is about as biased as it can get. It was published in the British Journal of Psychiatry and has not been retracted despite an independent investigation recommending its retraction, perhaps because the author had threatened to sue. Five editorial members resigned in protest. 

Legal bullying

Indeed, more people are using the legal system to threaten legal action against editors who retract their paper, alleging damage of reputation which in reality may be appropriate! Its rather like someone failing an exam suing the examiners for loss of potential earnings, or a failed job interviewee suing the interviewers for loss of income! It’s really that bad. Editors must have the courage to retract bad papers which somehow get through peer review, otherwise bad science will continue to feed into bad legal decisions which damage health of the most vulnerable. 

Grim consequences. 

The article concludes….”All four flawed studies were cited in multiple court cases as evidence that abortion increases the risk of mental health problemsThe meta-analysis has been cited in 25 court cases and 14 parliamentary hearings in six countries. The 2009 study was cited in at least 11 court cases and four legislative hearings”

So the papers have been used in court cases all over the world, and most effectively in the US, to attack women’s rights. Because they have not been retracted, they are seen by some Judges as established science. They have been in influential in the highly partisan US Supreme Court and are now being used to invalidate even the approval of mifepristone for medical abortion.

Journals now have better tools to spot errors and retract papers when needed, but too many get through and can be used for malicious purposes, here to remove women’s rights without consideration of the hardship and misery experienced by women with unwanted pregnancies being forced to continue to term.

In Texas, (see Texas Taliban) even a woman who is carrying a foetus with a fatal abnormality which threatens her life is not permitted an abortion. Doctors are fearful that in acting in the best interest of the women, that is, doing their job, they can be made criminals. 

This is a chilling example of how lawmakers are not in a good position to bring in such regulations. 

Why this matters in the UK….

Humanists UK have exposed how this is playing out in the UK. There is little I have to add to their analysis….”We published a news story warning of a ‘triple attack’ on abortion rights in Great Britain as for the first time, three separate pieces of legislation were lodged to try and restrict a woman’s freedom to have an abortion.

One such Bill, the ‘Foetal Sentience Bill,’ passed its second reading in the House of Lords – two thirds of the way to clearing the Lords. In the debate itself, some warned of the influx of undisclosed so-called  ‘dark money’ from America or elsewhere, which was potentially the reason for this massive uptick in anti-abortion campaigning using Texas-style tactics.

This is not a drill. In 2022, anti-abortion activists within the UK Government – we still don’t know who exactly – unilaterally amended a multinational human rights statement to remove all references to abortion rights, just days after Roe v Wade was overturned in the United States. 

At the moment, seeing the threat to abortion rights from the Christian evangelical right, we are campaigning to put abortion rights on firmer grounds by moving existing regulations from criminal law to civil law. This would keep the same term limits but make clear that abortion is a medical procedure and human right, not a police matter.”

There is further evidence that US extremists are influencing the UK government. The Alliance for Defending Freedom spent £1m in 2003 to influence UK politicians including paying £1,700 for the prime ministers special n religious freedom and beliefs to envoy to attend a conference. As well as stridently anti-abortion, they also want laws to outlaw consensual sex between consenting gay adults. I kind you not!

As the human species has long exceeded the ability of the planet to support us, it has never been more critical that women are able to determine their own futures. The free availability of family planning, challenging religious extremists of all complexions, and abortion services for when needed are critical in reducing population growth as well as improving life for mothers and children.

These rights, like all rights, cannot be assumed to be safe from the religious right. I hope this article does its bit to raise awareness that there are those out there who are working hard to ensure their extreme views translate into political action, restrictive law and its resultant criminalisation, persecution and prosecution of women trying to find help. 

Sadly, women will once again, have to start fighting for their basic rights.