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Pseudoscience and Abortion Policy

This chapter demonstrates how arguments against abortion are often based on pseudoscience. Twenty-nine states, home to 88 million women, have implemented at least two state-wide abortion restrictions not backed by scientific evidence. For example, Texas’s “A Woman’s Right to Know” booklet, offered to patients before having an abortion, uses deceptive language to lead readers to believe that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released a statement in 2009 concluding that there is “no association between induced abortion and breast cancer.” Meanwhile, Kentucky’s Senate Bill 5, passed in 2017, made it illegal to have an abortion after the twentieth week of pregnancy. The sponsor of the bill cited fetal pain as justification for the law, calling abortion after 20 weeks an “awful painful experience” for the fetus. However, a review of fetal pain evidence found that fetuses are unlikely to feel pain before the third trimester (around 29 weeks). Overall, Kansas, Texas, and South Dakota have the highest number of these types of pseudoscientific information policies in place.