The U.S. Supreme Court’s disappointing decision in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine did not evaluate the Biden FDA’s sale-by-mail marketing scheme for the abortifacient drug mifepristone but rather denied standing to the organization of pro-life doctors who challenged the government’s program. Further challenges may yet be made – by parties whose standing the Court will recognize. Should this eventuality come to pass, the ensuing decision may well rely, as FDA v. AHM might otherwise have relied, on what science says about the safety of the medication.
The question is, will science be allowed to have its say?
Mifepristone is the first component of a two-drug abortion regimen. It starves the developing human life – which the second component later expels from the uterus. Mifepristone has no other functions. It is distributed by two companies, Danco and GenBioPro, which also serve no other functions.
Last year, the unrestrained distribution of mifepristone was imperiled when a U.S. district judge in Texas suspended FDA approval for the drug. The judge’s ruling was modified by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which nevertheless found that mifepristone was much more dangerous than FDA approval would indicate. The Supreme Court stayed the effect of the Fifth Circuit’s decision, scheduled oral arguments, and ultimately delivered its own ruling, which we at Life Legal lament.
Still, what did the evidence say about postal poisons?
The original ruling in district court relied in part on studies published in the journal Health Services Research and Medical Epidemiology – studies that revealed a correlation between what was characterized as “concealed” chemical abortion and an increase in hospital visits.
You see, distributors often instruct mothers who suffer complications to say not that they underwent a chemical abortion but instead that they suffered a spontaneous miscarriage. They are instructed to conceal the induced nature of their abortion, especially in those states where abortion is now illegal. Concealment also protects the unsullied reputation of the abortifacient employed.
The studies cited by plaintiffs showed that following such instructions led to a 78 percent higher number of recurrent admissions. And such an increase just does not look good for mifepristone.
As the case approached the Supreme Court, this sobering dose of rational analysis was more than could be tolerated. So, in February of this year, SAGE Publishers, the operation behind Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology, retracted the offending studies.
One stated reason for SAGE Publishers’ decision was even more worrisome than the retraction itself. SAGE determined that the researchers were compromised by a conflict of interest – because they held pro-life views.
Contrast this concern about unbiased research with the latitude granted studies relied on by the FDA, studies purporting to show that complications from baby-killing poisons mailed to distraught mothers were “exceedingly rare.”
One of these exercises was entitled “Significant adverse events and outcomes after medical abortion” and appeared in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology in January 2013. Don’t let the title mislead you. The study was intended to prove how insignificant the incidence of adverse events and outcomes was. Listed amongst three proud co-authors is one Deborah Nucatola, M.D.
Pro-life readers may remember Dr. Nucatola as the distinguished leading lady of the very first undercover video released by the Center for Medical Progress. As an active abortionist and officer of Planned Parenthood, she discussed, over salad and red wine, the opportunity to provide baby body parts to CMP’s investigators, whom she took at the time for likeminded entrepreneurs.
Note the contrast. Studies by academically qualified pro-life researchers had to be retracted precisely because the authors were pro-life. But a study by pro-aborts – including a practicing abortionist, Planned Parenthood employee, and trader in baby body parts – was allowed to stand. Why? Because being in favor of abortion and having a significant financial interest in killing prenatal children… why, that isn’t a conflict or a bias at all!
How reliable really is today’s scientific discourse? Surely the scientific method is still as valid as it’s ever been. But scientists – and scientific publishers – are human beings with sometimes less-than-honest motives. As focused special interests such as the abortion industry continue to burrow their way into the government-media-academic complex, and as the financial rewards for conformity become greater and greater, the presentation of scientific evidence in court will become more and more difficult. Valid evidence may just end up retracted by the publisher.