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Considering the usual abuse of logic and science on the behest of the fetus – fetish crowd, it is really quite unsurprising that on yet another of their talking points – The majority of women who have abortions are emotionally scarred for life – is bunk. The Guttmacher Institute sent this little gem out via email.
“An authoritative new study from researchers in Denmark, noteworthy for its exceptionally strong methodology, confirms what the best scientific evidence has long shown—that there is no causal link between abortion and mental health problems. The new study, “Induced First-Trimester Abortion and Risk of Mental Disorder,” by Trine Munk-Olsen and colleagues, was published in the January 27, 2011, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.”
The study succeeds in addressing several critical limitations that have afflicted some other studies that purport to show causation between abortion and subsequent mental health problems. It can be viewed as unusually rigorous for this type of research for several reasons.”
Wow, correlation does not equal causation. The review of the study continues:
• The sample was very large, comprising 84,620 women who had first-time, first-trimester abortions between 1995 and 2007.
• It did not rely on retrospective self-reports from women, who typically underreport abortions. Instead, it was based on complete patient medical registries, which include virtually all mental health disorders, births and abortions experienced by the Danish population: the Danish Psychiatric Central Register and the Danish National Register of Patients.
• The study has strong controls for women’s mental health prior to abortion, a critical factor that many other studies do not control for sufficiently, if at all.
The study found no higher rate of mental health problems among Danish women in the 12 months following an abortion than in the nine months prior to the procedure.
So, yet another talking point dispatched. Score another for science and truth.
“Not all studies on the mental health impact of abortion are created equal. In fact, according to the American Psychological Association, methodological flaws are “pervasive in the literature on abortion and mental health.” Antiabortion activists often attempt to capitalize on the fact that the public and many policymakers cannot distinguish between studies that allow legitimate conclusions to be drawn about the effects of abortion and those that show only associations between abortion and mental health outcomes.”
The forced birthers not being academically or scientifically honest? Admittedly, there are not many other options to take considering the frail house of cards most anti-choice positions are built on.
“Antiabortion activists have relied on questionable science in their efforts to push inclusion of the concept of “postabortion syndrome” in both clinical practice and law. This latest study strongly confirms the existing body of methodologically sound evidence in clearly refuting the idea that abortion causes harm to women’s mental health. The body of evidence is now so robust that researchers should consider shifting their focus to related issues that might be more valuable to explore, such as the factors that cause women to experience mental health problems in the first place.
Of course, the anti-choicers won’t, as the health and welfare of women are secondary to their mendaciously insipid assault on women’s rights.
Religion and the religious sure are zany. I’m glad people like Thunderf00t take the time to explain why.
It is always amazing to witness the clueless try and defend what is indefensible. Water has no “memory” and will not cure you of any sort of disease that requires actual medicine, say for instance Polio. The video on the CBC site had a mother suggest that a homeopathic vaccine for Polio was ‘protecting’ her child. After I stuffed my cortex back into my skull (it runs away from white-hot stupidity) I realized that it was time for another post on the current round of homoeopathic ratbaggery . Please see the science blog Respectful Insolence for more homoeopathic loonery exposed.
I did find a previous video on Youtube from CBC Marketplace on colon cleansing which is another money-sink for ignorant people. Enjoy –
Update: Thanks to Intransigentia for getting the links to the CBC Marketplace show on Youtube. Also see Orac’s generally favorable analysis of how the CBC treated the woo-meisters.
Qualia Soup has a flair for making videos and patience that must be well above the norm as he takes time to answer claims against his first video on Irreducible Complexity.
Hey, quick, how does a internal combustion work in layman’s terms. You have 1 minute to get in all the pertinent information. Go!
Obviously, decisions are going to be made about what content to keep and how to say as much as possible with the time allotted. Climate change is like describing an internal combustion engine in 1 minute, only that that the science behind climate change is much more complex. Our media is guilty of not doing their homework on Climate Change. Potholer54 gets us more up to date on what the science actually says, as opposed to media mistranslations and inaccuracies.
Another refreshing video from Qualia Soup. Science, it works b*tches. :)
We are not alone in our galaxy. We have a visitor. By the name of HIP 13044 b? Leave it to science to find a really poetic name.
“Astronomers say they’ve found the first known planet to orbit a star that began its life outside our own Milky Way galaxy. In the last 15 years, almost 500 planets have been detected orbiting stars in our galaxy. But until now, no planet has been discovered that came from another galaxy.The discovery of a giant planet around the star HIP 13044 changes all that, a team of astronomers claims.”
“Because of the great distances involved, there are no confirmed detections of planets in other galaxies,” he said in a statement. “But this cosmic merger has brought an extragalactic planet within our reach.”
The planet — named HIP 13044 b — lies about 2,000 light years from Earth in the southern constellation of Fornax. Its mass is at least 1.25 times that of Jupiter’s and takes only 16.2 days to complete an orbit.
It was discovered by looking for the tiny wobbles produced when an orbiting object creates a pull on a star’s gravity. Astronomers used a high-resolution spectrograph attached to the 2.2-metre MPG/ESO telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile.
Way to go astronomers. I’m looking forward to more news on our first exoplanet discovery.
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