The APA study’s lead author, Dr. Brenda Major, faces allegations that she has violated the APA ethics rules by not sharing her data on abortion and mental health effects for other researchers to analyze.
LifeSiteNews.com reports that Major avoided fulfilling a request from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) asking in 2004 that she deliver copies of data she collected under a federal grant. Major avoided doing so, writing “It would be very difficult to pull this information together.”
David Reardon, biomedical ethicist and director of the Eliot Institute, said one of his colleagues in 2000 had requested a breakdown of details summarized in a table in a 2000 report by Major based on that data set.
“One of her grad students replied on her behalf with the additional summary statistics we had requested within 48 hours,” he said, according to LifeSiteNews.com. “So it clearly wasn't at all difficult for her team to access the data. Plus, with modern electronic data bases and multiple backup procedures in place at universities like hers, it is nearly impossible to lose such data."
Reardon claimed that Major had not responded to any further requests concerning the data since 2000 and voiced his belief that she is withholding the data to prevent the spread of findings supporting a link between abortion and subsequent health problems.
He said some additional information from research used in Major’s 2000 study showed women interviewed by Major did in fact attribute negative reactions to their abortions, but such information was not published.
“I know of a number of experts in the field who have requested the data, even within the last six months. But she simply doesn't respond to their calls, emails, or letters,” Reardon said, noting that APA ethics rule 8.14 requires research psychologists to share their data for verification of their findings.
“How can we trust the objectivity of a report prepared by a task force composed exclusively of pro-choice psychologists, especially when the chair and lead author has a history of withholding data and findings which may undermine her ideological preferences?" Reardon asked rhetorically.
Turning again to the APA report, Reardon said that though it conveys a message that abortion has no mental health risks, it actually admits that there is evidence that abortion causes negative effects for women who have had multiple abortions, women who abort because of coercion or pressure from others, minors who have abortions, and women with preexisting mental health problems which can be triggered or aggravated by an abortion.
He said women who have had multiple abortions accounts for about half of all abortions, while women pressured into having an abortion could account for between 20 to 60 percent of the women who have had abortions.
The San Antonio-based Justice Foundation has announced that 100 scientists, medical and mental health professionals have issued a joint statement saying they agree that it is common for women who have had an abortion to suffer “feelings of anger, fear, sadness, anxiety, grief, or guilt.”
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“It is undeniable that significant numbers of women are injured by abortion and should not be ignored by the medical profession and that significant numbers of women suffer serious physical, mental or psychological trauma as a result of abortion,” the joint statement continued.
Signatories to the joint statement attested that the existence of a causal connection between abortion and negative health problems is supported by the “self-attribution of women themselves,” mental health professionals’ successful diagnosis and treatment of post-abortion reactions, and peer reviewed, statistically validated studies which control for “confounding factors.”
Clayton Trotter, General Counsel of The Justice Foundation said: "Given that the Supreme Court, the Eighth Circuit, the British Royal Academy of Psychiatrists, 100 American Scientists, Medical and Mental Health Professionals and 3000 post-abortive women, and men agree that abortion can potentially severely hurt women we want that truth to be recognized by the American Psychological Association."