Upcoming APA Task Force Report on the Effects of Abortion

There is continuing reason to worry that the upcoming report of a panel of the American Psychological Association will be biased against the growing evidence that abortion harms women. Despite requests by Consistent Life and others to persuade the APA to appoint a balanced panel, that has not happened. Anyone with any influence on the APA should seek now to avert a biased report. The members of the Consostent Life Board, of which I am one, put the matter this way last year:

The Task Force on Mental Health and Abortion has six members. Three of them have a clear and publicly stated ideological stand on what the outcome of its work ought to be. Two of them have a web-site the very purpose of which is to correct information on this matter so as to reflect a pro-choice view, with authors asserting such explicit values do not interfere with the scientific nature of their work (see http://www.apa.org/monitor/apr03/letters.html). The remaining three members are two experts in domestic abuse and one in methodology.

While there are excellent members on this Task Force, it remains unbalanced – and its lack of balance will hurt both sides of the abortion debate, as any bias can be expected to do. This is the second such task force; the previous one, with some of the same members, found there were no detrimental after-effects of abortion.

Both the pro-life and pro-choice movements have a clear interest in a credible decision by the Task Force. To the ideological pro-life movement, women who believe they were traumatized by their abortions are a major constituency group. To have their voice entirely blocked from such a task force will seriously detract from the credibility of its conclusion in their eyes. There are already suspicions that the outcome is rigged.

To the ideological pro-choice movement, who most commonly don't believe pregnancy termination is a form of violence at all, the interest in having a credible outcome is also strong. If the what the original task force found is accurate (no or minimal psychological effects), then having this put forth by a task force that is so easily accused of bias could end up doing more harm than good.

The report of this Task Force is due out in 2008 – an election year, a point which increases suspicion that it is a political enterprise rather than a scientific one.

We have been told that only the science will drive the result, no matter what the personal opinions of the task force members might be, and that there will be a thorough review process after the report before it is disseminated. We hope this is true. But the decision against establishing balance in the personal opinions of the task force members is puzzling if a credible report is truly desired.