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==Press coverage== | ==Press coverage== | ||
===''The Washington Monthly''=== | ===''The Washington Monthly''=== | ||
In a '']'' article titled, "Research and Destroy", author ] profiles Reardon as an example of what he describes as "Christian conservatives have gone a long way towards creating their own scientific counter-establishment."<ref name=mooney>Chris Mooney Washington Monthly, October 2004</ref> He also notes that Reardon's findings conflict with those of the ], which has rejected the "the notion that abortion regularly causes severe or clinical mental problems", and with the conclusions which Surgeon General ] delivered to ] in 1988. Koop stated that |
In a '']'' article titled, "Research and Destroy", author ] profiles Reardon as an example of what he describes as "Christian conservatives have gone a long way towards creating their own scientific counter-establishment."<ref name=mooney>Chris Mooney Washington Monthly, October 2004</ref> He also notes that Reardon's findings conflict with those of the ], which has rejected the "the notion that abortion regularly causes severe or clinical mental problems", and with the conclusions which Surgeon General ] delivered to ] in 1988. Koop stated that the psychological risks from abortion are "miniscule from a public health perspective."<ref> Chris Mooney Bucking the Gipper, October 2004</ref> | ||
===''The New York Times Magazine''=== | ===''The New York Times Magazine''=== |
Revision as of 15:27, 25 February 2008
Template:Totallydisputed David C. Reardon is the American director of the Elliot Institute and an advocate in favor of strict barriers to abortion.
The Elliot Institute
Reardon is the director of the Elliot Institute which, according to its web site, is "engaged in research and educational activities related to the effects of eugenics, abortion, population control, and sexual attitudes and practices on individuals and society at large". According to the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, Reardon is the Elliott Institute's sole full-time employee.
The Elliot Institute has endorsed model legislation regarding informed consent provisions for women considering abortion and bills that would increase the liablity of physicians who provide abortions that are deemed "unsafe or unnecessary". The Elliot Institute is also leading an effort to build a coalition of groups to advocate for laws that would create a preemptive ban on human genetic engineering.
Reardon and the Elliot Institute opposed The Missouri Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative, and proposed a competing initiative which would have prohibited any embryonic stem cell research which resulted in the destruction of a human embryo, as well as some other types of genetic research, in Missouri. The Elliot institute created a website which mimicked the site of a pro-stem-cell-research group, the Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures. The Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures sued the Elliot Institute in federal court for alleged copyright and trademark violations. Consequently, the Elliot Institute website was ordered temporarily shut down by a federal judge.
Academic credentials
Reardon received his Ph.D. from Pacific Western University, an unaccredited online organization with no classroom instruction. Reardon is the author of five books and has published a number of studies in peer medical reviewed journals linking abortion with negative effects on women's mental health.
Studies and books on abortion
Reardon has written a number of journal articles and books on what he asserts are the harmful sequelae of abortion. In 1985, Reardon surveyed members of a group called Women Exploited by Abortion, and found high rates of nervous breakdowns, substance abuse, and suicide attempts. Reardon described this finding as proof of a link between abortion and psychological harm. However, his findings were dismissed as non-generalizable by expert panels in the medical community, due to the selection bias introduced by surveying only women from a pro-life organization who already felt "exploited" by their abortion.
Subsequently, Reardon has published several peer-reviewed studies on the physical and psychological effects of abortion. Reardon's studies have consistently found a significant statistical associations between a history of abortion and elevated risks of death, psychiatric hospitalization, suicide, depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, and other sequalae.
Reardon's findings conflict with the majority of medical opinion and evidence, which does not support a link between abortion and any adverse physical or psychological effects.
Reardon's books include Aborted Women, Silent No More, Making Abortion Rare, and The Jericho Plan: Breaking Down the Walls Which Prevent Post-Abortion Healing, the last of which is intended to instruct clergy. In one chapter of the book, Reardon provides a sample sermon called "The Devil's Bargain" in which he suggests that pastors should preach the following:
After the abortion, Satan, who used despair to drive the woman to choose abortion, now uses despair to destroy the woman in other ways. He becomes the woman's accuser.
He is also the lead author of Victims and Victors: Speaking Out About Their Pregnancies, Abortions, and Children Resulting from Sexual Assault reports on a survey of approximately 200 women who experienced pregnancies from rape or incest, including women who carried to term and women who had abortions. In describing the results, Reardon wrote "Most women who aborted did so only because they felt it was their only choice, and more than 80 percent said it was a choice they deeply regretted. Many felt that abortion only compounded their emotional trauma and allowed others to ignore their need for compassion and support."
Political views and pro-life affiliations
Reardon describes his own position as both "pro-life" (believing a human fetus is deserving of protection) and "anti-abortion" (believing abortion hurts women). In a 2002 article in Ethics & Medicine, Reardon argued that in order to be effective, pro-life efforts had to present "a moral vision that consistently demonstrates just as much concern for women as for their unborn children." Reardon encourages the pro-life movement to embrace and disseminate information stating that abortion was harmful to women, writing:
In some cases, it is unnecessary to convince people of abortion's dangers. It is sufficient simply to raise enough doubts about abortion that they will refuse actively to oppose the proposed anti-abortion initiative.
According to the Elliot Institute website, Reardon "is a frequent guest on Christian radio and Christian television talk shows and has been a frequently invited speaker state and national conventions for crisis pregnancy centers and pro-life organizations." Reardon addressed the National Pro-Life Religious Council in 1998, where he discussed emotional reactions to abortion in the context of the disputed entity of "post-abortion syndrome".
Academic criticisms
See also: post-abortion syndromeReardon's research and methodology have been criticized by, among others, Brenda Major of the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Nancy Russo, a psychology professor at Arizona State University.
Brenda Major argues that the results of Reardon's studies are "inconsistent with a number of well-designed earlier studies" which did not find higher rates of psychological problems after abortion. She also argues that by comparing women who had abortions to women who delivered pregnancies Reardon's methodology in this study is flawed, and that a more appropriate comparison would be to women who wished to abort their pregnancy but chose not to or were not allowed to do so. She explains that a higher incidence of psychological problems among women who have abortions is likely to be explained by higher rates of pre-existing psychological problems among women inclined to have abortions. She also asserts that the findings reported by Reardon may be easily misinterpreted by the public:
On the basis of correlations such as the one reported here, abortion-rights opponents assert that scientific evidence indicates that abortion causes psychological harm. Because they are not experts in scientific reasoning, most people are unable to evaluate the validity of these claims. Statistics such as those reported by Reardon and colleagues thus run a high risk of being used in ways that misinform and mislead the public."
In a 2005 article published in the British Medical Journal, Sarah Schmiege and Nancy Russo re-analyzed the U.S. National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, a database upon which Reardon had based some of his conclusions. Schmiege and Russo tested the same hypotheses as Reardon, but utilized different coding and sample selection, which they argued were more accurate than those used by Reardon. Reanalyzing the dataset with these differences, they found "no support for the claim by Reardon and Cougle that terminating an unwanted first pregnancy contributes to risk of subsequent depression," and concluded:
The previous relation between termination of unwanted first pregnancy and risk of depression was not found when more appropriate coding and sampling approaches were applied to the same dataset.
Press coverage
The Washington Monthly
In a Washington Monthly article titled, "Research and Destroy", author Chris Mooney profiles Reardon as an example of what he describes as "Christian conservatives have gone a long way towards creating their own scientific counter-establishment." He also notes that Reardon's findings conflict with those of the American Psychological Association, which has rejected the "the notion that abortion regularly causes severe or clinical mental problems", and with the conclusions which Surgeon General C. Everett Koop delivered to President Reagan in 1988. Koop stated that the psychological risks from abortion are "miniscule from a public health perspective."
The New York Times Magazine
In a front-page story for New York Times Magazine, Slate editor Emily Bazelon describes the growing movement of post-abortion counseling ministries around the United States as part of an effort by pro-lifers to outlaw abortion. She argues that Reardon is the "Moses" of efforts to promote the idea that abortion harms women. She writes that Reardon has claimed the anti-abortion movement will "never win over a majority... by asserting the sanctity of fetal life. Those in the ambivalent middle 'have hardened their hearts to the unborn ‘fetus’' and are 'focused totally on the woman.' And so the anti-abortion movement must do the same."
Bazelon goes on to say:
For anti-abortion activists, this strategy offers distinct advantages. It challenges the connection between access to abortion and women's rights — if women are suffering because of their abortions, then how could making the procedure readily available leave women better off? It replaces mute pictures of dead fetuses with the voices of women who narrate their stories in raw detail and who claim they can move legislators to tears. And it trades condemnation for pity and forgiveness. “Pro-lifers who say, ‘I don’t understand how anyone could have an abortion,’ are blind to how hurtful this statement can be,” Reardon writes on his Web site. “A more humble pro-life attitude would be to say, ‘Who am I to throw stones at others?’
When researchers attack his findings, Reardon writes to the journals’ letters pages. “Even if pro-abortionists got five paragraphs explaining that abortion is safe and we got only one line saying it's dangerous, the seed of doubt is planted,” he wrote in his book.
Boston Globe
Reardon has been described in the Boston Globe as someone who "wants Congress to impose strict barriers to abortion." The Boston Globe also published the following:
This dual role of advocate/researcher is becoming more common, especially as advocacy groups realize they can sway more opinions by asserting that their research is based on science, rather than simply on personal belief. Reardon, like many people who play this dual role, insists he can objectively look at the data without being influenced by his personal viewpoint.
Other criticisms
Some commentators have characterized Reardon as "controversial" because a case review by Reardon suggesting that abortion associated post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was a contributing factor behind Lorena Bobbitt's act of severing her husband's penis with a kitchen knife, in 1993. Reardon asserts that the attack, which occurred almost exactly three years after the abortion, reflected aspects of an "anniversary reaction" associated to the abortion. To support this theory, Reardon notes that Lorena testified that she had flashbacks to the abortion moments before the attack when she was in the kitchen and retrieving the knife. Court records indicate she was also treated for psychosomatic cramping and other symptoms days before the attack which Reardon also asserts may be related to post-abortion anniversary reactions.
Bibliography
Books by Reardon
- Aborted Women, Silent No More (1987)
- Making Abortion Rare: A Healing Strategy for a Divided Nation (1996)
- The Jericho Plan: Breaking Down the Walls Which Prevent Post-Abortion Healing (1996)
- Victims and Victors: Speaking Out About Their Pregnancies, Abortions, and Children Resulting from Sexual Assault (with Julie Makimaa and Amy Sobie - 2000)
- Forbidden Grief: The Unspoken Pain of Abortion (with Theresa Burke - 2002)
References
- Science in support of a cause: the new research, by Michael Kranish. Published in the Boston Globe on July 31 2005; accessed November 27 2007.
- Elliot Institute Website "About Our Coalition"
- ^ Who Is David Reardon and Why Is He Living in Missouri? From the website of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. Published December 21 2007; accessed February 17 2008.
- Elliot Institute Website "Politics"
- Elliot Institute homepage
- Missouri State Government website
- Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures
- Abortion foes seek vote in Missouri, by Kit Wagar. Published in the Kansas City Star, November 29 2007. Accessed December 23 2007.
- Court Shuts Down Anti-Stem-Cell Web Site for Copyright Violations, by Donna Higgins. From news.findlaw.com, originally published March 27 2006. Accessed January 7 2008.
- ^ Mooney, Chris. (October 1, 2004). "Research and Destroy". Washington Monthly. Retrieved February 11, 2007. Cite error: The named reference "mooney" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- PBS NOW transcript, show #329, aired on PBS on July 20 2007; accessed November 27 2007. In the transcript, PBS senior correspondent Maria Hinojosa describes Reardon: "With a PhD from an unaccredited online institution, he's turned out dozens of studies that supposedly prove abortion is dangerous to women's mental health."
- Politicized Science: How Anti-Abortion Myths Feed the Christian Right Agenda, by Pam Chamberlain. Published in The Public Eye by Political Research Associates, Summer 2006. Accessed February 17 2008.
- The Medical Right: Remaking Medicine in Their Image. A report from the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. Page 47 describes Reardon's background: "Background in electrical engineering, PhD in biomedical ethics from Pacific Western University, an unaccredited correspondence school."
- Authoritative databases of accredited US institutions exist at the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA database) and the United States Department of Education (USDE accreditation database); neither lists PWU as of November 2007. Several states specifically list Pacific Western University as an unaccredited institution, including:*Texas*Michigan*Maine*Oregon
- ^ Is There a Post-Abortion Syndrome?, by Emily Bazelon. Published in the New York Times Magazine on January 21 2007; accessed November 27 2007.
- Reardon DC, Ney PG, Scheuren F, Cougle J, Coleman PK, Strahan TW (2002). "Deaths associated with pregnancy outcome: a record linkage study of low income women". South. Med. J. 95 (8): 834–41. PMID 12190217.
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Reardon DC, Cougle JR, Rue VM, Shuping MW, Coleman PK, Ney PG (2003). "Psychiatric admissions of low-income women following abortion and childbirth". CMAJ. 168 (10): 1253–6. PMID 12743066.
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Reardon DC, Strahan TW, Thorp JM, Shuping MW (2004). "Deaths associated with abortion compared to childbirth--a review of new and old data and the medical and legal implications". J Contemp Health Law Policy. 20 (2): 279–327. PMID 15239361.
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Cougle JR, Reardon DC, Coleman PK (2003). "Depression associated with abortion and childbirth: a long-term analysis of the NLSY cohort". Med. Sci. Monit. 9 (4): CR105–12. PMID 12709667.
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Cougle JR, Reardon DC, Coleman PK (2005). "Generalized anxiety following unintended pregnancies resolved through childbirth and abortion: a cohort study of the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth". J Anxiety Disord. 19 (1): 137–42. doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2003.12.003. PMID 15488373.
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Reardon DC, Coleman PK (2006). "Relative treatment rates for sleep disorders and sleep disturbances following abortion and childbirth: a prospective record-based study". Sleep. 29 (1): 105–6. PMID 16453987.
- Rue VM, Coleman PK, Rue JJ, Reardon DC (2004). "Induced abortion and traumatic stress: a preliminary comparison of American and Russian women". Med. Sci. Monit. 10 (10): SR5–16. PMID 15448616.
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Grimes DA, Creinin MD (2004). "Induced abortion: an overview for internists". Ann. Intern. Med. 140 (8): 620–6. PMID 15096333. Key summary points of article state that "Abortion does not lead to an increased risk for breast cancer or other late psychiatric or medical sequelae." On p. 624, the authors state: "The alleged 'postabortion trauma syndrome' does not exist."
- David Reardon. The Jericho Plan: Breaking Down the Walls Which Prevent Post-Abortion Healing
- Sample Sermon, "The Devil's Bargain", Chapter 5 of The Jericho Plan: Breaking Down the Walls Which Prevent Post-Abortion Healing. posted at www.afterabortion.info and excerpted for posting with permission.
- PBS NOW transcript, show #329. Aired on PBS on July 20 2007; accessed November 27 2007.
- David C. Reardon. Making Abortion Rare: A Healing Strategy for a Divided Nation (1996) Acorn Books.
- ^ Reardon DC (2002). "A defense of the neglected rhetorical strategy (NRS)". Ethics Med. 18 (2): 23–32. PMID 14700036.
- "A defense of the neglected rhetorical strategy" by David C. Reardon
- Elliot Institute Website Retrieved November 19, 2007
- Real Audio from the National Pro-Life Religious Council website Retrieved November 19, 2007
- "Pastors Gather to Meet Challenge of Pro-Life Ministry." Publication: National Right to Life News
- ^ Major B (2003). "Psychological implications of abortion--highly charged and rife with misleading research". CMAJ. 168 (10): 1257–8. PMID 12743067.
- ^ Schmiege S, Russo NF (2005). "Depression and unwanted first pregnancy: longitudinal cohort study". BMJ. 331 (7528): 1303. doi:10.1136/bmj.38623.532384.55. PMID 16257993.
- Chris Mooney (sidebar) Bucking the Gipper, October 2004
- Science in support of a cause: the new research, by Michael Kranish. Published in the Boston Globe on July 31 2005; accessed November 27 2007.
- Ertelt, Steven. (January 15, 2004). "New Report on Lorena Bobbitt Case Focuses on Forced Abortion." Lifenews.com. Retrieved February 11, 2007.
- Their Deepest Wound: An Analysis The PostAbortion Review 4(2-3) Spring & Summer 1996.
See also
External Links
Major media
- Is There a Post-Abortion Syndrome? by Emily Bazelon. New York Times Magazine. January 21, 2007; accessed November 27, 2007.
Pro-Choice
- "Who Is David Reardon and Why Is He Living in Missouri?" on website of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice
- "The Emotional Effects of Induced Abortion" Planned Parenthood (National)
- "Beware of Meaningless Studies by Anti-Choice 'Researchers'" Pro-choice Action Network
- Politicized Science: How Anti-Abortion Myths Feed the Christian Right Agenda, by Pam Chamberlain. From Public Eye, published by Political Research Associates
Pro-Life
- "David C. Reardon, Biographical Sketch" The Elliot Institute
- DAVID REARDON: A GODSPY INTERVIEW Godspy: Faith at the Edge
- Interview with David Reardon of the Elliot Institute, Zenit, May 12, 2003.