Who is peddling junk science?
An article printed in The Times newspaper on 31st January 2019, with the title “School lectures tell teenage pupils that abortion is like a Nazi crime“ seriously misrepresented Lovewise. We would like to share our response with you.
The first three points concern our presentation, ‘The facts about Abortion’.
- The title was misleading as it referred to abortion being likened to a Nazi crime. In fact, the reference is in the background notes for the teacher and is not on a slide for teenage pupils. Our resource asks “Do we, as a society, kill people after they are born because they have an abnormality? Should we kill people if they become disabled after an accident? These were some of the crimes of Nazi Germany which have been so strongly condemned.” This is the only reference to Nazis in our presentation and is dealing with ethical principles that are behind the abortion of those with disability.
- The statement that pupils in hundreds of schools were being told this was a lie. The journalist had been informed by email the previous day that this presentation had not been delivered in any schools in 2018 and that (sadly) only 8 copies had been sold to parents and youth leaders.
- The article criticises our presentation for peddling ‘junk science’. In contrast, Lovewise seeks to present the most accurate scientific information available. After careful consideration we stand by the facts presented in this material.
After criticising our material, the article goes on to commend ‘a fact-based guide’ to abortion - ‘Abortion and Abortion Care Factsheet’ - which has been written ‘to support Relationships and Sex Education in secondary schools’ (https://www.fsrh.org/fsrh-rcog-abortion-care-factsheet-rse/ ). It is of note that this guide was released on the same day as the article was published. It calls itself a ‘factsheet’ but promotes scientific inaccuracies (in italics), some of which are included below:
- ‘Abortion does not result in future infertility’. The NHS website on abortion clearly states that abortion may be complicated by pelvic infection, which is a well-recognised cause of infertility.
- ‘Abortion does not cause mental illness’. This ignores numerous scientific articles that link abortion to mental illness – see this excellent summary from the CMF blog: https://cmfblog.org.uk/2011/09/01/abortion-and-mental-health-strongest-evidence-yet-of-a-link/
This claim also ignores countless testimonies of women who have undergone abortion and suffered years or even a lifetime of mental and spiritual anguish. See reference to this in:
- ‘there may be a slightly higher risk of future premature birth’. In fact the increased risk is substantial and dose-related i.e. the more abortions the worse the risk. See this summary: https://cmfblog.org.uk/2015/07/07/abortion-and-preterm-births-what-women-need-to-know-but-are-not-told/
- ‘current evidence suggests that the fetus is unable to feel pain under 24 weeks’. Every neonatologist will testify that extremely premature babies show distress when they have a needle inserted into them. Some obstetricians claim that the baby in utero is rendered unconscious by certain brain chemicals. However, the scientific evidence for this is entirely absent (see review by neonatologist Dr Martin Ward Platt): https://fn.bmj.com/content/96/4/F236
- ‘Emergency contraception, taken after unprotected sex, is not a method of abortion. Pregnancy only starts when a fertilised egg implants in the wall of the womb’. The important issue is whether the ‘fertilised egg’ represents human life. The leaflet makes no attempt to address or answer this more fundamental question, which is essential to our understanding of what constitutes the protection of early human life.
Helpful information on this topic can be found in the book “Pregnancy & Abortion – Your Choice” (2017) by Dr M. Houghton [ISBN 978-1-910786-80-2].
