Abortion proponents have been telling us for years the damage it would do to women if abortion were made illegal. Now a major gold-standard study has shown that argument to be fatally flawed. In a bizarre twist, however, The New York Times has reported on the research as if it favored the pro-abortion position.

The Times article, written by Pam Belluck, carries the headline “Abortion Is Found To Have Little Effect On Women’s Mental Health.”

Science journalism can be tricky. Sometimes it’s embarrassingly oversimplified, sometimes it’s distorted, especially on topics with potential political implications. It’s always important to consult the original source.

What It Says

Here’s what the actual research report says: Researchers compared mental health outcomes for women who had been granted abortions and those who had been denied it due to the baby’s gestational age. It found that those who seek abortions have similar mental health outcomes whether they are granted the abortion or denied it for reasons of law or policy beyond their control.

What It Tries To Say

But the Times tries to extend its findings far beyond that. For example:

Some states require women seeking abortions to be counseled that they might develop mental health problems. Now a new study, considered to be the most rigorous to look at the question in the United States, undermines that claim.

Is that true? No, because of what isn’t said in either the Times article or the original research.

What It Doesn’t Say

The research report says nothing about the effects of counseling women before abortion. All of the study participants had visited abortion clinics seeking the procedure. Some of them were allowed to abort, others were denied; none were actually persuaded not to have the abortion.

In other words, the study is completely silent on the mental health effects of deciding not to have an abortion, whether that’s because they know it is wrong, or they’re persuaded by family members not to have it, or even if there’s no facility nearby where they might hope to obtain an abortion.

So there’s nothing in this study that measures the effect of moral persuasion.

What It Says Again

If a woman chooses abortion but is coerced out of it against her will, her long-term mental health is likely to be the same as if she were allowed it.

What can we conclude from that, then, about the value of counseling or persuading women not to have an abortion? What can we conclude about the value of making a moral choice? What can we conclude about the difference it makes when a family member supports a mother carrying her pregnancy to term?

In other words, what do we really know (from this study, that is) about the full range of differences between having an abortion and not having one?

Practically nothing — except that being coerced out of having a desired abortion doesn’t seem to help the mother much. (It helps the baby. A lot.)

The Bombshell: No Evidence for a Major Pro-Abortion Argument
But there is more — and it’s a bombshell. Abortion proponents are so eager to tell us this study undermines arguments against abortion, they’ve missed its devastating assault on their own position.

They say it’s good for women to have “choice.” For example, “Reproductive choice empowers women by giving them control over their own bodies,” and “Women who receive abortions are less likely to suffer mental health problems than women denied abortions” (abortion.procon.org).

Care to show some evidence for that? Previous research studies have differed on it. This “gold standard” study says there is no such evidence. Women who want an abortion but are legally denied the opportunity may not come out any better for it, but they don’t come out any worse, either.

In fact the evidence strongly suggests that legally denying abortion has no long-term adverse mental health effects on women at all. So much for that “pro-choice argument”!

Policy Implications

Is there any mental health argument in favor of abortion, then? Not according to this study. Women’s mental health ought not be a consideration in abortion policy — not because women’s health is unimportant, but because this study shows that legally allowing or denying abortion has no real effect on it.

Does this study give any comfort to people who want to end requirements for pre-abortion counseling on mental health effects? Yes and no; but the yes part is silly. Yes, where abortion is illegal due to the age of the child in the womb, there’s no evidence-based mental health reason to counsel women against an abortion. But what’s there to counsel about when it’s already against the law?

Meanwhile, though, this study says nothing about counseling (persuading) a woman to carry the child to term. This study adds nothing of value to policy discussions on that question — though you can count on many others acting as if it does, along with the Times.

But the big news is that there’s no evidence that legal restrictions on abortion have any negative impact on women’s mental health or well-being. (For more from the author of “Major New Research Devastating to Abortion; Times Flips It the Other Way Around” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

An Oklahoma law requiring abortionists to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals is unconstitutional, according to the state’s highest court. The 2014 law, called SB1848, included protections for the women’s health and safety and required an abortion facility to have a doctor there who could admit patients to a hospital not more than thirty miles away.

Claiming that the requirement was passed “under the guise of the protection of women’s health,” the Oklahoma Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional “because it creates an undue burden on a woman’s access to abortion, violating protected rights under our federal Constitution.”

U.S. Supreme Court Precedent

The Court cited both the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this summer overturning Texas abortion center standards that included abortionist admitting privileges. The U.S. Supreme Court said the Texas law was an “undue burden” on the health of women, in part because the number of abortion centers in the state dropped by about half once it and another law were implemented.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court noted that there are two licensed abortionists in the state. One of them and the plaintiff in the case, Dr. Larry Burns, said he faced possible heavy fines and/or the closure of his center after being unable to get admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. According to the court, the risk to his abortion center’s existence meant women would risk not having access to abortion.

The Court also said that Burns’ practice was safe for women who are getting abortions:

In 41 years of private medical practice, Burns has only called an ambulance one time for a patient who was simply observed and released from a local emergency room. We find there is no evidence to support defendants’ position that this legislation protects and advances women’s health.

The court also claimed that the law violated a state constitutional requirement that laws have a “single subject.” The law includes new provisions that “are so unrelated that many of those voting on the law would be faced with an unpalatable all-or-nothing choice.”

“Women are in Danger in Many Abortion Clinics”

Conservative Oklahoma activist and blogger Jamison Faught told The Stream that he was “not surprised that the state Supreme Court once again tossed out a pro-life law. For some reason, Oklahoma has a very liberal state judiciary. One of their favorite strategies in striking down pro-life legislation is their very inconsistent application of the single-subject rule in the state Constitution.”

Governor Mary Fallin said in a statement distributed to the press: “I’m disappointed to see another pro-life law struck down by the courts. Like many bills passed in Oklahoma, this bill was designed to protect the health and welfare of the mother along with the life of the unborn, which always should be among our society’s priorities.” Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt did not immediately respond to request for comment.

The Oklahoma ruling came hours after Americans United for Life (AUL) released a report, Unsafe Conditions, detailing over 1,400 health and safety violations by 227 abortion centers in 32 states around the nation since 2008. In a National Review Online op-ed, AUL Vice President of Legal Affairs Denise Burke wrote that her organization’s report

convincingly demonstrates that the Supreme Court’s claim that abortion clinics are ‘safe’ qualifies as the lie of the year. The report documents that in Texas alone, at least 17 abortion providers have recently been cited by state officials for violations of health and safety standards, including, ironically, five clinics operated by Whole Woman’s Health, the lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court case.

AUL spokesperson Kristi Hamrick told The Stream that “It is clear that women are in danger in many abortion clinics. We can document that. Any court that refuses to see this is not looking at the facts at hand.”

She added: “When the Supreme Court threw out Texas’ health and safety standards, they said at that time that it could be constitutional to have such standards if they were proven to be necessary. Here’s your proof.” (For more from the author of “Oklahoma Supreme Court Overturns Pro-Life Law That Raised Abortion Center Standards” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Jessica Duran is suing Southwestern Women’s Options (SWO), an abortion center in New Mexico, for giving her aborted daughter’s body to University of New Mexico for taxpayer-funded fetal research without her knowledge or consent.

Duran, who received an abortion from SWO in 2012, is being supported in her lawsuit by non-profit pro-life group New Mexico Alliance for Life (NMAFL).

At a press conference at the University of New Mexico Monday morning, Duran said “my right to choose was violated” by SWO. “They take advantage of women like me in frantic situations by not giving us all the facts and information we are entitled to,” Duran said.

According to the lawsuit filed at the Second Judicial District Court in Bernalillo County, New Mexico, SWO provided Duran with a consent form indicating that “tissue and parts” of her aborted baby could be used in medical research. However, the center failed to inform Duran of important specifics, such as the nature and extent of how her baby would be used in research, the fact that SWO was the sole supplier of fetal tissue to UNM (several SWO staff physicians are also volunteer faculty members at UNM), who she could contact with questions about the process, or the fact that the donation of her baby’s body to fetal research was voluntary.

“I was never informed of the University of New Mexico’s collaboration with SWO for research,” Duran said in a NMAFL press release Monday morning, “which appears to have influenced SWO employees to encourage me to abort my daughter.”

Duran’s lawsuit accuses SWO of deceptive trade practices and violation of state law, which requires informed consent before providing an abortion.

“We have evidence that suggests UNM and SWO have been violating women’s rights to informed consent since 1995,” said Elisa Martinez, NMAFL Director, in Monday’s press release. Martinez and Duran are asking New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas to criminally investigate SWO and UNM.

NMAFL isn’t the only group investigating the relationship between and fetal harvesting practices of SWO and NMAFL. The Congressional Select Panel on Infant Lives issued a criminal referral to Balderas earlier this year for “prosecution of various acts” by SWO and UNM.

“UNM Health Sciences Center and Southwestern Women’s Options can no longer deny wrongdoing,” Martinez said; “there are victims out there who were deceived and whose rights were violated in the harvesting of aborted babies’ bodies.”

NMAFL has launched a new website where women like Duran who have had abortions at SWO and believe their rights were violated can submit a complaint.

At the press conference, Martinez further detailed the “shocking” practices NMAFL had discovered in their investigation of SWO and UNM, including the dissecting of an unborn 7-month old brain by students at a UNM summer camp. The brain had been ordered “whole and fixed” by UNM from SWO.

Laura Rosecrans of Surrendered Hearts Abortion Recovery Ministries said that many women are re-traumatized when they learn after-the-fact that their aborted babies’ bodies are used for such purposes.

“My baby was not just a clump of cells,” Duran said in NMAFL’s press release Monday morning. “That’s the lie that is being exposed: my baby was fully human, and her body was highly valuable for the sum of her parts, for UNM research projects.”

Watch the recorded press conference from NFMAL here. (For more from the author of “Woman Sues Abortion Center Over Violation of Informed Consent Regarding Fetal Research” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

An abortion facility in Ohio run by one of the nation’s most notorious abortion doctors has had its operating license revoked by Rick Hodges, director of the state’s Department of Health, CBS News reported.

The license was revoked after abortionist Martin Haskell’s Women’s Med Center of Dayton failed to obtain a transfer agreement with area hospitals, a requirement for abortion facilities in Ohio, CBS News reported. The clinic also failed to name the required number of physicians to standby as backup for emergencies — the only way abortion facilities can be exempt from the transfer agreement.

The clinic plans to appeal the order and has 15 days to do so, according to Dayton Daily News.

As reported earlier by The Stream, Haskell is credited with being the first to scientifically describe partial-birth abortions, after having carried out 700 of the horrific procedures himself.

The closing of Women’s Med Center of Dayton is being credited in part to the pro-life non-profit Created Equal through its Killers Among Us project, which discouraged area physicians from supporting the abortion clinic. The campaign is “aimed at calling out doctors involved in abortions, which included posters, mailers and vehicles circulating through the doctors’ neighborhoods publicizing their names,” Dayton Daily News reported.

“Other ob/gyn’s in the community saw what was going on and didn’t want to be a part of it,” said Jennifer Branch, attorney for the clinic.

Created Equal celebrated in a news release Thursday, with National Director Mark Harrington saying “Our efforts combined with local activists have had an impact.”

Katie Franklin, spokeswoman for Ohio Right to Life, said the organization is “very grateful to see that action is being taken on this facility, and we are hoping thousands of lives in Dayton are saved in the long run.”

Maryland Late-Term Abortionist Walks Out of Clinic

News of the clinic’s revoked license follows the end of another abortionist’s practice — specifically, his practice of providing late-term abortions.

Operation Rescue, a pro-life activist organization, reported last week that Leroy Carhart of Maryland has officially stopped providing late-term abortions at Germantown Reproductive Health Services (GRHS). According to Operation Rescue, GRHS previously provided abortions through all nine months of pregnancy.

But many abortions performed by Carhart were far from safe. Possibly as many as 12 women were transported from his clinic to emergency rooms after botched abortion attempts, Operation Rescue reported in March. One of his patients died after complications following her abortion procedure at 33-weeks.

Operation Rescue President Troy Newman said Carhart’s retirement from late-term abortions is “something to be grateful for.”

“Carhart’s brand of very late-term abortions are morally reprehensible and very dangerous, having taken the lives of countless viable babies and two of his patients,” Newman continued. “We have worked for years to end this atrocity, and today, Maryland is free from the dangers posed by Carhart.”

Carhart still performs abortions up to 20 weeks at a facility near his hometown in Nebraska, according to Operation Rescue. (For more from the author of “Pro-Life Progress: License of Ohio Abortion Clinic Revoked, Maryland Late-Term Abortionist Quits” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.