Kerby Anderson

Next month, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on a case related to the abortion pill. That is why pro-life researchers question the decision by an academic publishing company to retract studies that suggest significant health risks after taking chemical abortion drugs.

Earlier this month, Sage Publishing announced it has retracted three studies related to the abortion pill. The justification was that there were undeclared conflicts of interests. The study authors, they contend, did not disclose their ties to a pro-life organization.

One of the authors spoke to the Christian Post and explained that she and her fellow researchers never concealed their connection. In fact, they fully disclosed who they were affiliated with and even reported that the studies were funded by a pro-life institute.

I don’t claim to know all the details of the dispute, but I must admit that the reaction seems like a classic case of the genetic fallacy, where data is dismissed based solely on the source or origin rather than its content.

Facts are facts. Data is data. If an argument for abortion comes from researchers working with a pro-abortion group like the Guttmacher Institute, it should be evaluated based on factual analysis. Likewise, an argument against abortion or the abortion pill that comes from researchers working for a pro-life group should be evaluated the same way.

The reason for these studies was to determine the safety or lack thereof of chemical abortion compared to surgical abortion. The only research group that would likely be interested in that question would be pro-life researchers. They would want to know what percentage of women end up in the emergency room after using the abortion pill. This should be relevant data in the Supreme Court decision.