The Patriot Post® · Avoiding the Abortion Pill's Inconvenient Truths

Sage Publishing, which markets itself as an independent academic journal, retracted three studies regarding the dangers for mothers who use the abortion pill. This likely occurred due to outside political pressure, though Sage denies this particular allegation. For perspective, the three studies have been around since 2019, 2021, and 2022, respectively, and the complaint came only after a couple of key political incidents.

Two of the studies were cited as credible sources by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in his ruling suspending the use of mifepristone, a popular abortion pill. The studies warned about the increased danger of recurring emergency room visits and medical complications due to the use of the chemical abortion drug.

Another federal court, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, cited one of the authors of all three suppressed studies, Dr. Ingrid Skop. Her strong medical advice was that chemical abortions not be administered through the mail or prescribed via telemedicine. This also has to do with the safety and health of the mother.

Why this accelerated push to suppress these studies and medical professionals? Well, in March, the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments regarding the distribution of mifepristone.

This author predicted in June 2022 that pro-abortion advocates would start suppressing information and risks to women vis-à-vis the abortion pill after the overturning of Roe v. Wade. All clues indicate that this is what is happening in the case of these three studies.

Chris Adkins, who got these three studies pulled, is a pharmaceutical sciences professor and abortion supporter. He claimed that the information was “misleading” and that the research authors had a conflict of interest.

As to the conflict of interest claim, one of the researchers, James Studnicki, is Charlotte Lozier Institute’s vice president and director of data analytics. The Charlotte Lozier Institute is the research arm of the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America group. With regard to the two studies that were cited by Judge Kacsmaryk, this affiliation was disclosed at the bottom. In debating the retraction, the researchers pointed out to Sage Publishing that they had no problems publishing other articles that were openly affiliated with the Guttmacher Institute, which is avowedly pro-abortion. Will Sage remove those articles as well, or does it only apply to works cited by judges attempting to protect women from the abortion pill pushers?

What was the information that was “misleading”? The definition of what qualifies as an adverse reaction to a chemical abortion. The researchers, specifically Johns Hopkins-trained Dr. Studnicki, counted every time a woman had to make an emergency room visit as a response to the abortion pill. Sage Publishing would have preferred that the count were limited to surgical intervention or hospitalization. If the point of the research is that chemical abortions can adversely affect the health of the mother, then even going to the emergency room for directly related health emergencies is essential information.

The intellectual capture, which Sage adamantly denies, is evident across the board. Scientific journals, researchers, universities, and others that conduct scientific research now tend to favor whatever studies back up their pet political ideologies. In this case, it’s the pro-abortion lobby. In others, it’s the pro-gender mutilation lobby. If determining whether studies and research are reasonable depends on a political ideology and not the methodology and protocol, then it’s not really science anymore.

In this case, the timing is awfully suspicious, and the studies in question are being discredited ahead of a major political decision. If the retractions were indeed politically motivated, then it brings up this one essential question: Why do pro-abortion advocates feel they need to suppress scientific studies contradicting their preferred ideological stance?

The answer is likely that they don’t actually care about the women on whom they are trying to push these drugs. They only care about the principle of being able to kill babies through the “convenient” method of abortion pills.