keeping the missing link lost

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Jan 07, 2006

A new study indicates a link between abortion and subsequent mental illness. Don't be shocked, but America's brave and independent peer-reviewed scientific journals "declined" to publish the findings:

DAVID FERGUSSON: The whole topic has been remarkably under-researched, in terms of whether… there's been a lot of debate about whether abortion does or does not have harmful effects, but the amount of research into the harms of abortion, or its benefits for that matter, has been very limited.

TOM IGGULDEN: Why do you think it is that a debate as hot as the abortion debate hasn't featured research along these lines to date?

DAVID FERGUSSON: I… my view is very clear that it has actually frightened resear… well I know that I've heard researchers say that we were foolhardy doing research in this area, because everybody knows that if you do research in this area, one side or the other is going to turn upon you, because your results don't support them.

TOM IGGULDEN: Have you encountered that very phenomenon?

DAVID FERGUSSON: No, well we had a certain amount of difficulty getting these results published, but…

TOM IGGULDEN: How so? In what way?

DAVID FERGUSSON: Well we… journals we would normally have expected to publish them just declined the papers, and I think it's… because the debate is so very hot, and I think this is particularly so in the US of A, and it's notable that our paper was published in a British journal.

I await with interest the chorus of outrage from NOW and NARAL protesting this inexcusable suppression of scientific information so essential to women's health.