Thursday, August 14, 2008

"Psych/Abortion" Report: Where's the Data?

Here's what you'll see in the MSM:

A report from the American Psychological Association (APA) published this week claims that there is no meaningful connection between abortion and subsequent psychological disturbances in women. When a woman has a negative psychological consequence, says the report, it is likely only to be in cases where a "wanted" child was aborted for eugenic reasons.

Uh-Huh.

Here's what you WON'T see in the MSM:

The credibility of a new report on the mental health effects of abortion from the American Psychological Association is tarnished by the fact that the lead author, Dr. Brenda Major, has violated the APA's own data sharing rules by consistently refusing to allow her own data on abortion and mental health effects to be reanalyzed by other researchers.

Major, a proponent of abortion rights, has even evaded a request from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to deliver copies of data she collected under a federal grant. Because her study of emotional reactions two years after an abortion was federally funded, the data she collected is actually federal property. But in Major's response to 2004 HHS request for a copy of the data, Major excused herself from delivering the data writing, "It would be very difficult to pull this information together


Well, if my study of the LeftyBloglodytes doesn't have to be peer-reviewed, then do I have a bombshell report!!

...a researcher familiar with Major's work, David Reardon of the Elliot Institute, has seen portions of Major's unpublished findings. Reardon, who has published over a dozen studies on abortion and mental health, believes Major is withholding the data to prevent her findings supporting a link between abortion and subsequent health problems from coming to light

Doh!

"This is very troubling on two counts. First, the APA's own ethics rule, 8.14, requires research psychologists to share their data for verification of findings. Secondly, she is the chair of the APA Abortion Task Force which is, at least in theory, supposed to bring full and clear light to this issue. But how can we trust the objectivity of a report prepared by a task force composed exclusively of pro-choice psychologists, especially when the chair and lead author has a history of withholding data and findings which may undermine her ideological preferences?"

Umnnnhhh.....IPCC? That NASA twit? Hello!!

1 comment:

Jeff Miller said...

None of the facts actually matter sine now news stories will now just include references to this study.