Ireland: Abortion and science

Science is far from silent on the adverse consequences for women of restrictive abortion laws

Sat Oct 22 2022
Dr. Peter Boylan

Sir, – William Reville argues that science is silent on the ethics of abortion and that leading scientific journals cannot present “science’s position on abortion – science has no position” (“Why science remains silent on the morality of abortion”, Science, October 21st). He suggests that, following the overturning of Roe v Wade by the US supreme court earlier this year, it is a function of democracy that, “For almost 50 years American conservatives lived with universal access to abortion. Now American liberals must live with restricted access to abortion.”

It is American women and girls, both conservative and liberal, who must now live with the dangers of restricted access to safe and legal abortion. Moreover, science, in the form of evidence-based research and data, is far from silent on the adverse consequences for women of restrictive abortion laws. The science is clear that such laws do not result in fewer abortions, but instead put the lives and health of women at greater risk by compelling them to depend on unsafe and illegal abortion.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/2022/10/22/abortion-and-science/

22.10.2022

Yes, science can weigh in on abortion law

Why, as a scientist, I signed an amicus brief for the US Supreme Court’s case on abortion.

Diana Greene Foster, Nature
16 November 2021

The world is moving towards greater reproductive rights for women. More than 50 countries have liberalized their abortion laws in the past 25 years, informed by scientific research. Studies find that unsafe abortion is responsible for one in eight maternal deaths globally (E. Ahman and I. H. Shah Int. J. Gynaecol. Obstet. 115, 121–126; 2011), concentrated in low-income countries where abortion is illegal. Preventing unsafe abortion is a priority — 193 countries signed up to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which call for reductions in maternal mortality.

Yet some countries, such as the United States, Poland and Nicaragua, are making access to abortion more difficult. Restrictions are passed on the basis of ideology or political motives, without considering scientific evidence about their impact.

Continued: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03434-1

16.11.2021

Opinion

consequences of being denied abortion

Diana Greene Foster

intimate partner violence

USA – Limiting Scientific Research is Another Front in the War on Abortion

10/6/2020
by MICHELLE ONELLO

The recent death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg puts reproductive rights guaranteed by Roe v. Wade in grave jeopardy. As part of its war on abortion, the Trump administration has banned scientists from using human fetal tissue (HFT) donated from terminated pregnancies in medical research.

The ban on HFT research is not only another attack on reproductive freedoms; it is limiting crucial medical advances, putting lives in danger and demonstrating the vast collateral damage unleashed by the war on abortion. Reproductive rights advocates must seize upon this dangerous politicization of medical research to forge new allies and further broaden advocacy coalitions.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2020/10/06/reproductive-freedom-hft-human-fetal-tissue-abortion-trump-hhs-alex-azar/

How the Supreme Court could overturn Roe — while claiming to respect precedent

Conservatives could build on abortion restrictions that point to “scientific uncertainty.”

By Mary Ziegler
July 1, 2020

The Supreme Court’s recent abortion ruling shows that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. means it when he says that “the legal doctrine of stare decisis requires us, absent special circumstances, to treat like cases alike.” Casting the deciding vote Monday in June Medical Services v. Russo, he ruled against an abortion restriction that Louisiana claimed protected women against unscrupulous doctors. The state even asked the court to prevent abortion providers from suing on behalf of their patients, claiming a conflict of interest. If these arguments were new, the chief justice almost certainly would have accepted them both. The problem was that the Supreme Court had heard them before: In 2016, the justices invalidated an identical Texas law. Roberts couldn’t distinguish the two statutes enough to make a different ruling — not while respecting precedent.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/how-supreme-court-could-overturn-roe/2020/07/01/51fe4a2c-bb1e-11ea-80b9-40ece9a701dc_story.html

Malta – Science should guide all our health policies… including abortion

Science should guide all our health policies... including abortion
Our total abortion ban is no less dangerous or unhinged (or even idiotic, for that matter) than Donald Trump’s notorious recommendation to ‘drink bleach’ as an antidote to COVID-19

Raphael Vassallo
5 May 2020

I guess it had to take a major global health emergency to make us finally understand what should really have been obvious all along. Yes, Dr Fearne: our national policies should be based on scientific advice... and not on popular opinion, electoral concerns, or (still less) the demands of powerful lobby groups.

It is, in fact, thanks to the health authorities’ science-based approach that Malta has so far been spared the nightmare scenarios we have seen unfolding almost everywhere else in the world. As Fearne himself put it last Friday: “We are in today’s positive situation because from the very beginning we abided by what science was telling us, and what the numbers were suggesting.”

Continued: https://www.maltatoday.com.mt/comment/blogs/102116/science_should_guide_all_our_health_policies_including_abortion#.XrLpuMB7lPY

The moment a baby’s brain starts to function, and other scientific answers on abortion

The moment a baby’s brain starts to function, and other scientific answers on abortion

May 24, 2018
Tomás Ryan

There are not two views on abortion in Ireland. There are 4,803,748 different perspectives. In the weeks leading up to polling day, the Irish people have started from the ground up and the debate is now firmly in the parameters of “under what circumstances should abortion be available?”

Scientists are generally a stroppy sort of people. We are trained to question absolutely everything, and we have a deep scepticism of authority or unjustified assertion. We make individual conclusions based on an objective assessment of the evidence and – beyond the core accepted scientific facts – we disagree with each other constantly.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/abortion-referendum/the-moment-a-baby-s-brain-starts-to-function-and-other-scientific-answers-on-abortion-1.3506968

24.05.2018