![]() In contrast, the 2012 study that claimed to prove that abortion pill reversal was possible involved only six women. Longitudinal studies, which follow their subjects over a period of several years, are even more likely to produce quality results.īecker cites ANSIRH’s Turnaway Study, which followed nearly 1,000 women over a period of five years, as an example of rigorous abortion-related research. If a study only involves “a handful of people, it’s not real, especially about clinical outcomes,” says Andréa Becker, a postdoctoral researcher at ANSIRH, a research program based at the University of California, San Francisco, noting that a solid study will involve several hundred people. Scientific papers can be confusing and intimidating to read, but there are a couple of simple strategies you can use to assess if a claim is backed up by good research. Girard recalls a conversation with a Latin American colleague who was convinced that abortion increased people’s risk of breast cancer-right up until Girard pulled out a copy of the fact sheet that the World Health Organization had put together to combat that very myth. Even feminist activists sometimes get duped by disinformation. And “once a myth is put out, it’s very hard to debunk,” especially since, Girard notes, “the facts are often more complex than the lie.”īut it’s not always easy to spot this misinformation. Whether it’s claims that abortion causes cancer and infertility, exaggerated tales of abortion regret, promises that taking a high dose of progesterone can “reverse” a medication abortion, or anti-abortion “ crisis pregnancy centers” masquerading as abortion clinics, it’s easy to find yourself taken in by legitimate-seeming claims that have no bearing in truth. “It’s not an accident, it’s actually a feature of the anti-abortion movement,” says Françoise Girard, a longtime abortion activist and CEO of Feminism Makes Us Smarter. Abortion misinformation has been around forever.
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