Among the most prevalent weapons in the multi-pronged assault on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is the attempt to eliminate access to insurance coverage of safe abortion care. Twenty-three states have now passed laws barring abortion coverage from insurance plans within state health exchanges (some with limited exceptions), according to the Guttmacher Institute.
The trade association that represents the interests of amusement parks such as Six Flags Entertainment Corporation – which recently experienced a fatal roller coaster accident– has lobbied against efforts to impose federal safety regulations at amusement parks for years, lobbying records show.
A Maryland lawmaker and a handful of local advocates have started the course to repeal the state’s HIV-specific criminal law. Efforts to repeal HIV criminalization laws are under way in several states, including as Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, and Washington.
The conservative funders who bankrolled a flawed and widely cited academic study that’s critical of gay marriage choreographed its release in time to influence “major decisions of the Supreme Court,” documents show.
In a study slammed for its methodology, funding, and academic integrity, University of Texas associate sociology professor Mark Regnerus found that children who grew up in households where one parent had a same-sex relationship (regardless of whether the children lived with that parent or that parent’s supposed same-sex partner) were more likely to experience negative social, psychological, and economic outcomes than children raised by a married heterosexual couple.
In face of inaction on emergency-contraception access, Native American women are being forced to turn to their own "Plan B" in order to prevent unintended pregnancies.
After two GOP Senate candidates saw their campaigns implode following their controversial comments about abortion and rape, some Republicans have encouraged their party to de-emphasize abortion. But anti-abortion leaders disagree. Faced with polls saying eight in 10 Americans think abortion should be legal when a pregnancy results from rape, these activists are pushing for more public discussion of the issue. It's part of a long-term campaign to bring the country closer to banning abortion in nearly all cases.
Care Net is a self-described “pregnancy resource center” that works to prevent abortion by offering an array of services, including free pregnancy tests, parenting classes, and counseling. The USDA denied the group’s loan request due to the “inherently religious” nature of some of its programming.
When University of Texas professor Mark Regnerus released a study this summer portraying gay parents in a negative light, he insisted that the conservative funders who backed the research had no involvement in how it was designed, implemented, or interpreted.
But recently emerging evidence shows that a scholar affiliated at the time with the Witherspoon Institute — the socially conservative think tank that supplied the bulk of Regnerus’ funding — did indeed play a role carrying out and analyzing the study.
Anti-abortion restrictions should be designed to raise “the costs” of abortions in order to discourage women from obtaining them, a prominent scholar for a leading anti-abortion group told an audience of social conservative activists in Washington last weekend.
Abortion rights advocates have long suspected that the purpose of restrictive abortion laws is to impede access to abortion. Anti-abortion advocates generally refuse to concede the point, countering that laws that require women to make multiple trips to the abortion clinic, for instance, are intended to help women make informed choices. But speaking at the Values Voter Summit, an annual gathering of religious conservatives sponsored by the Family Research Council and other conservative groups, anti-abortion scholar Michael J. New veered from abortion foes’ traditional argument when he specifically advocated policies to raise “the costs” of abortions.
“The best thing you can do when you get home is support a variety of state pro-life bills, and essentially, if your state has them, they can be strengthened,” New, a University of Michigan-Dearborn professor who is an adjunct scholar for the anti-abortion Charlotte Lozier Institute, said during a September 15 presentation at the summit. “You can defund abortion by stopping Medicaid funding or by defunding Planned Parenthood. You can strengthen parental-involvement laws, by requiring both parents to be involved. You can strengthen informed-consent laws: Require the woman to see an ultrasound, or require two trips to the clinic. That raises the costs; that stops the abortion from happening. You can lengthen the waiting period. Don’t be like the other states that do 24, 48, 72 hours. Do it for nine months—that’ll stop abortions in your state. I guarantee it.”
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The Charlotte Lozier Institute was founded in 2011 as the education and research arm of the Susan B. Anthony List, a political action committee that works to elect abortion rights opponents to Congress. The Lozier Institute has been touted as the abortion rights opponents’ response to the Guttmacher Institute, a policy group once affiliated with Planned Parenthood that produces research on abortion laws and policy and is often cited by lawmakers, scholars, and journalists on both sides of the abortion debate.
Political science professor Michael J. New, adjunct scholar for the Charlotte Lozier Institute, talks about effective abortion restrictions at the Values Voter Summit, Sept. 15, 2012. (AMERICAN INDEPENDENT/Sofia Resnick)
New, who is also a fellow for the conservative Witherspoon Institute, said his research has found a correlation between states’ anti-abortion legislation and declines in abortion—among 47 states that reported data in 1990 and 2005, he said the number of abortions dropped by about 22 percent.
New reiterated his comments in an interview with The American Independent following the panel discussion, specifically noting that abortion laws that require two separate trips to the clinic drive up the costs for women trying to get an abortion, “especially for women in rural areas.”
“We really know a lot about public funding restrictions, and we know a lot about parental involvement,” New said. “There’s also a body of research—not as large—on informed-consent laws, and the important thing there is they really have to be designed the right way. They typically have to require two separate trips to the clinic. That kind of raises the economic costs of getting an abortion, especially for women in rural areas, women who live far away. Yeah, I think there’s good evidence from Mississippi and a few other states that have done them that they’ve been effective, as well.”
“I have some concern with how well a lot of those informed-consent laws are enforced,” he added. “With things like public funding, if money doesn’t show up, that’s self-enforcing. With informed consent, you’re kind of relying on the clinic to supervise itself, which it may or may not do. But essentially if you get situations where, you know, people have to make two separate trips, that does raise the economic cost, that does get the numbers down.”
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Asked about New’s comments, a spokesperson for the Susan B. Anthony List told The American Independent that informed-consent laws are intended to help women, not hinder their decisions.
“The goal with both informed consent legislation and waiting periods is to provide essential information to the mother thinking about abortion and ensure she has time to consider it,” said Mallory Quigley in an email. “States are advising mothers of fetal development and alternatives and providing reassurance that the community prefers childbirth over abortion. The waiting period is not a tax but a time for reflection and even consultation about the support services available to mothers.”
Quigley referred TAI to one of New’s studies, which was published in 2011 in State Politics and Policy Quarterly. According to Quigley, New “found that holding a variety of economic and demographic variables constant, a range of state informed consent laws were effective in helping mothers to choose life, regardless of whether these laws required two trips to the clinic.”
She also added: “The fact remains that abortion clinic revenues are very substantial—by conservative estimates, abortion procedures account for 46% of all Planned Parenthood clinic revenue. The abortion clinics themselves have far more control over the cost of an abortion than anyone else.”
PolitiFact Florida has analyzed a similar claim about Planned Parenthood’s abortion revenue and has labeled it “false.”
In the conclusion section of the paper Quigley referenced, New noted that restricting public funding of abortion raises costs for women, potentially reducing abortion rates:
This study is unable to provide a clear rationale as to why in-state abortion rates and ratios decrease after states enact anti-abortion laws. Public funding restrictions, parental involvement laws, and informed consent laws would, respectively, increase the costs of obtaining an abortion, place legal restrictions on abortion, and require that alternatives be presented to women seeking abortions. As such, these laws might increase the likelihood that women facing crisis pregnancies would give birth. Parental involvement laws might increase the likelihood that minors will obtain abortions in states where the laws are less restrictive. Anti-abortion laws might increase the likelihood of unreported or illegal abortions. Finally, anti-abortion laws might also give individuals a greater incentive to use contraceptives or engage in less sexual activity.
A 2009 Guttmacher Institute literature review analyzing the impact on abortion of state mandatory counseling and waiting period laws cited research finding that implementation of Mississippi’s 1992 mandatory counseling law, which called for an extra in-person visit, was followed by a drop in abortions in Mississippi but a smaller increase in the rate of Mississippi residents obtaining abortions in neighboring states like Tennessee and Alabama.
Elizabeth Nash, state issues manager of the Guttmacher Institute, told The American Independent that although abortion restrictions that lead to higher costs for women might have the effect of reducing abortion rates in those states, these laws don’t address the broader issue.
“None of these restrictions reduces the need for abortion,” Nash said. “This is all about abortion and has nothing to do with reducing unintended pregnancy.”
Political science professor Michael J. New, adjunct scholar for the Charlotte Lozier Institute, talks about effective abortion restrictions at the Values Voter Summit, Sept. 15, 2012.
New reiterated his comments in an interview with The American Independent following the panel discussion, specifically noting that abortion laws that require two separate trips to the clinic drive up the costs for women trying to get an abortion, “especially for women in rural areas.”
Anti-abortion protest (Flickr/Anna Levinzon)
On a Friday morning in September 2005, 22-year-old Brittany Wilson sat in a Planned Parenthood clinic a mile away from her home in Sioux Falls, S.D., and bawled her eyes out.
Ten days before, she had called the clinic to schedule an abortion. Three days before her appointment, she had called back to listen to some state-mandated information about the risks of abortion and her legal rights. And moments before, she had driven to the clinic alone and paid $447. But she was crying, she would later say, because she did not want this abortion.
The Planned Parenthood staffer whose job it was to make sure this abortion was voluntary and informed noticed Brittany’s distress and asked her if she had considered adoption. Brittany said she did not “want to do that.”
Through the staffer, the doctor told Brittany she didn’t have to have the abortion that day. Brittany said, “I’m alright,” and went out to lunch.
Later that day, a doctor vacuumed out her 7-week-old fetus.
In the months and years that followed, Brittany would say in federal court that her boyfriend had forced her to have an abortion she didn’t want. She blamed Planned Parenthood for letting it happen. Brittany did not sue the abortion provider, but testified in defense of a 2005 state law requiring abortion providers to inform clients of certain state-determined risks of abortion — some of which are disputed by mainstream scientific organizations — including the claim that abortion puts women at higher risk for depression and suicide. (The legal challenge over the 2005 law was finally resolved this year, with all of the controversial provisions being upheld on appeal.)
In her testimony – given during a deposition under oath and later in a handwritten declaration – Brittany asserted that Planned Parenthood had not given her enough information to help her make an informed decision. She also said that after her abortion, she had an emotional breakdown and started drinking heavily; she indicated that she had already been taking medicine to treat depression before the abortion.
Brittany’s story is again being used in federal court — this time to defend a South Dakota law that addresses the issue of coerced abortion. Anti-abortion advocates have claimed that coerced abortion has reached crisis levels in the United States, despite a lack of scientific evidence showing that to be the case. The law – pieces of which went into effect in July – is part of a national legislative trend pushed by anti-abortion leaders, which in large part relies on the testimony of women who regret their abortions.
This year alone, at least 11 states have considered abortion bills that deal with coercion, according to Americans United for Life, an anti-abortion policy group in Washington, D.C. AUL specializes in anti-abortion model legislation and has developed an anti-coercion bill, titled “Coercive Abuse Against Mothers Prevention Act.”
Often, anti-coercion policies are introduced as part of a package of restrictions and regulations and either dictate that an abortion provider must screen women for coercion, as in the case of a recently passed law in Wisconsin, or that an abortion provider must post signs in abortion clinic waiting rooms saying that it is illegal for anyone to pressure a woman into having an abortion, as in the case of a new law in Arizona. An omnibus anti-abortion bill in Michigan, which would enact similar coercion-related policies, passed the state House earlier this year and is now being considered by the state Senate.
South Dakota’s new law, which was passed last year and modified this year, goes far beyond simply mandating that the abortion doctor screen for coercion. If the law survives the legal challenge, women will have to wait 72 hours after they schedule the abortion, meaning they will have to make two trips to the state’s only abortion clinic in Sioux Falls, which provides abortions once a week on average. During that waiting period, women will have to submit to an interview at one of three state-sanctioned “pregnancy help centers,” all of which are faith-based and are vocally opposed to abortion. The point of this interview, as stated in the bill, is so the pregnancy help center can “discuss [the pregnant woman’s] circumstances that may subject her to coercion.” Additionally, the pregnancy help centers can use the interview as an opportunity to “inform the pregnant mother … what counseling, education, and assistance that is available to the pregnant mother to help her maintain her relationship with her unborn child.”
Some of these new anti-coercion laws, including South Dakota’s, contain provisions making it easier to sue abortion doctors for failing to adequately screen for coercion.
Supporters of anti-coercion abortion bills argue that these policies are meant to protect women. But critics claim that – like laws that single out abortion clinics by imposing difficult-to-meet construction requirements – anti-coercion policies are really meant to make accessing abortion more complicated in the short term, and illegal in the long term.
The South Dakota lawmaker behind the state’s new anti-coercion abortion law and the 2005 informed-consent abortion law told The American Independent that the underlying intention of these bills was to create a legal framework for more abortion restrictions.
“This law, and even the 2005 law, basically legally speaking, this doesn’t deal with the same legal theories that Roe v. Wade dealt with,” Rep. Roger Hunt (R-Brandon) said. “This presents brand-new legal arguments … relative to abortions. The basic idea is that these laws would allow the Supreme Court to give states the right to adopt similar legislation.”
Legal scholars, such as Yale University law professor Reva Siegel, have described the rationale underpinning these types of laws as the “woman-protective” anti-abortion argument. Siegel, who has written extensively about anti-coercion efforts in South Dakota and elsewhere, observed in a 2008 Duke Law Journal article that the anti-abortion movement has begun to “supplant the constitutional argument ‘Abortion kills a baby’ with a new claim ‘Abortion hurts women.’”
Anti-coercion or anti-abortion?
Many public-health professionals who support abortion rights oppose these types of abortion laws because they say anti-coercion policies that single out abortion sidestep the broader issue of domestic and sexual violence, which many believe is the root of coercion.
Dr. Elizabeth Miller, a medical doctor and associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh, has been researching domestic and sexual violence issues for more than 20 years. She told TAI that while her research has uncovered some evidence of coerced abortion, there is not enough data to show it being a pervasive problem.
What the data shows, she said, is that sexual coercion – women being forced into sexual activity – is a pervasive problem. She said that sexual coercion often leads to unwanted pregnancies, followed by abusive partners trying to control the outcome of the pregnancy, be it by trying to force the woman to continue with the pregnancy or to abort. Reproductive coercion can take the form of men sabotaging their partners’ birth control methods or otherwise forcibly impregnating them.
Very little research has been done exclusively on coerced abortions, and Miller told TAI there is not enough data to compare the rates of forced pregnancies and forced abortions.
A 2010 study co-authored by Miller surveyed approximately 1,300 men recruited from three community health centers in lower-income Boston-area neighborhoods. About 32 percent of participants reported having perpetrated physical or sexual violence against a female partner; 33 percent reported having been involved in a pregnancy that ended in abortion; 8 percent reported having at one point sought to prevent a female partner from seeking abortion; and 4 percent reported having at one point “sought to compel” a female partner to seek an abortion.
“Coerced abortion is a very small piece of the puzzle of a much larger problem, which is violence against women and the impact it has on her health,” Miller said. “To focus on the minutia of coerced abortion really takes away from the really broad problem of domestic violence.”
Jay Silverman, a professor of medicine and global health at the University of California at San Diego, told TAI that recent laws addressing coerced abortion are nothing more than anti-abortion laws that have been “barely dressed up” as public-health policies intended to protect women.
“It’s not that [coerced abortions] could not exist,” said Silverman, who frequently collaborates with Miller and coauthored the 2010 study. “It’s that the issue is to assist women by working to help identify instances of domestic violence. … In the climate where there is so much political hostility related to women’s reproductive rights, [singling out abortion] really inhibits a comprehensive agenda from being established.”
‘Abortion is not an option’
In the years since her abortion, Brittany Weston (she has since married) has given birth to a child and now lives in Yankton, S.D. Weston says it was her former boyfriend, Joe (an alias), who, in her words, “pressured” her into having the abortion seven years ago. In a declaration dated July 1, 2011, Weston wrote, “If the Planned Parenthood counselors had any interest in determining that I was being forced to have an abortion, I would not have had an abortion and would have my child today.” And when she testified in favor of South Dakota’s new coercion law at a state House Judiciary Committee hearing (minute 22:13) in February 2011, she said: “I wanted Planned Parenthood to rescue me from the man who was forcing me to have an abortion. All they did was his bidding.”
Weston has said that from February to May 2006, she attended a post-abortion therapy program at the Alpha Center, a crisis pregnancy center in Sioux Falls. In April 2006, about a year after Planned Parenthood’s South Dakota affiliate filed a lawsuit against the state’s just-passed informed-consent abortion law, Weston was called as a witness by the counsel representing two CPCs (known in South Dakota as “pregnancy help centers”). The Alpha Center and Care Net Pregnancy Resource Center in Rapid City had entered the case as “intervenors” – meaning that alongside the defendants, these centers could take discovery and question witnesses. Those very same centers are once again intervenors in the current lawsuit.
Based on the two sworn affidavits Weston submitted in both lawsuits and a deposition she gave in the first lawsuit, this is what Weston says happened:
In July 2005, Weston had nearly completed her college degree and had started dating Joe, who was 41 years old, had two kids, and worked as a therapist counseling adolescent children. Two months later, when she was about to start a new full-time job, Weston discovered she was pregnant. The way she tells it, “I quickly told the nurse [at a local health clinic] in a forceful manner that ‘abortion is not an option.’”
When she later asked Joe for his emotional and financial support, she says he told her, “We can’t have a kid.” He said he didn’t want to pay child support for a third child, and for reasons that are not explained in Weston’s testimony, she says Joe told her that if she had the baby and it became known that he was the father, he would lose his job.
“At no time did I ever want an abortion,” she wrote in her initial affidavit, dated May 16, 2006. “Joe wanted me to have one. When I agreed to get an appointment for an abortion at Planned Parenthood, I scheduled the abortion for Joe, not for me.”
In that affidavit, she also said that when she reviewed her medical records related to the abortion, she was “surprised – even dismayed” to learn that the abortion doctor had certified that Weston had “given informed consent freely and without coercion to this abortion.”
“In fact, whatever consent, if any, was given at all, it was under pressure, against what I wanted, and it was not informed in any meaningful way,” Weston wrote.
Weston’s explanation of how Joe pressured her into having an abortion is essentially that he persuaded her, and told her to keep the pregnancy a secret. “I was very emotionally dependant on Joe and I thought I needed his approval,” she wrote.
A Republican-controlled congressional body this week used a controversial new parenting study to argue that the Defense of Marriage Act is constitutional.
The Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the U.S. House of Representatives, commonly known as BLAG, filed a brief Tuesday with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Karen Golinski, who is suing to force the federal government to recognize her marriage. BLAG has been involved in this and other marriage cases since last year, when President Obama decided the Department of Justice would no longer defend the constitutionality of a key section of DOMA.
BLAG’s brief marks the second time the study — which was conducted by University of Texas professor Mark Regnerus with the financial backing of socially conservative groups — has been used to defend DOMA in the case. The day after Regnerus’ study was released to the public last month, a conservative medical group highlighted it in a “friend of the court” brief. The American College of Pediatricians filed that brief at the request of the Alliance Defending Freedom, an influential religious right legal organization.
In its June 11 amicus brief, the American College of Pediatricians had referred to Regnerus’ study as “the most current research on child outcomes for children raised by same-sex couples” and wrongly asserted that Regnerus had found a number of “statistically significant differences where children raised by two women fared worse than children raised by married biological parents.”
In fact, Regnerus’ study has been widely criticized for comparing children raised by intact biological families to children raised by parents who had a same-sex relationship at some point, regardless of whether the child was actually raised by a stable, same-sex couple.
Golinski, who is represented by the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, responded in a brief earlier this month defending previous research concluding that children raised by same-sex parents fared no worse than those raised by opposite-sex parents. Golinksi’s brief criticized the American College of Pediatricians’ use of Regnerus’ study:
[The American College of Pediatricians] cites a recent paper by Mark Regnerus purporting to present empirical evidence of differences in outcomes for children raised by lesbian and gay parents. … This study, however, compared children of “intact biological famil[ies]” not to children raised by “intact” same-sex couples but instead primarily to children raised by single parents and in unstable family settings, with loosely-applied criteria for categorizing a parent as lesbian or gay. The paper itself concedes that it cannot answer any “questions of causation.” This paper does nothing to undercut the consistent social science findings over decades of research.
On Tuesday, BLAG answered with a brief that cites Regnerus’ study in defending what it describes as one of the rational bases behind DOMA: “the centuries-old wisdom that children generally benefit from being raised by their own biological mothers and fathers, and that law and government should encourage and support that outcome.”
BLAG’s brief describes the Regnerus study as one of “two significant studies” published in recent weeks “undermining Ms. Golinski’s social science theory.” BLAG adds:
Unlike virtually all of the previous studies in this area, the Regnerus study included a representative sample that was large enough to draw statistically powerful conclusions regarding comparative outcomes of people whose parents had homosexual relationships and those who were raised by their married biological mothers and fathers—and it discovered that the former group reported significantly worse outcomes on a large number of key indicators.
BLAG also pushes back on criticism of Regnerus’ study, citing a joint statement from 18 social scientists who have defended it. BLAG’s brief further states:
In any event, the study’s alleged shortcoming—that adults raised from infancy by same-sex couples are so rare that it is impossible to obtain a large sampling of them … “despite significant efforts” to do so… —only highlights the fact that all of the research in this field is in its infancy. That fact underscores the rationality of Congress’ decision to proceed with caution.
The other recent study BLAG cites in support of the premise that children are better off when raised by two heterosexual parents was published in the Journal of Marriage and Family in May. That study, authored by Daniel Potter of the American Institutes for Research, found that children raised in same-sex-parent families scored lower on academic tests than children raised in two-parent households by a straight couple. Potter found that children raised by same-sex couples scored similarly to children in other types of “nontraditional families” — meaning families that involve stepparents, single parents, cohabiting parents, or another nontraditional structure.
A Republican-controlled congressional body this week used a controversial new parenting study to argue that the Defense of Marriage Act is constitutional.
The Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the U.S. House of Representatives, commonly known as BLAG, filed a brief Tuesday with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Karen Golinski, who is suing to force the federal government to recognize her marriage. BLAG has been involved in this and other marriage cases since last year, when President Obama decided the Department of Justice would no longer defend the constitutionality of a key section of DOMA.
BLAG’s brief marks the second time the study — which was conducted by University of Texas professor Mark Regnerus with the financial backing of socially conservative groups — has been used to defend DOMA in the case. The day after Regnerus’ study was released to the public last month, a conservative medical group highlighted it in a “friend of the court” brief. The American College of Pediatricians filed that brief at the request of the Alliance Defending Freedom, an influential religious right legal organization.
In its June 11 amicus brief, the American College of Pediatricians had referred to Regnerus’ study as “the most current research on child outcomes for children raised by same-sex couples” and wrongly asserted that Regnerus had found a number of “statistically significant differences where children raised by two women fared worse than children raised by married biological parents.”
In fact, Regnerus’ study has been widely criticized for comparing children raised by intact biological families to children raised by parents who had a same-sex relationship at some point, regardless of whether the child was actually raised by a stable, same-sex couple.
Golinski, who is represented by the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, responded in a brief earlier this month defending previous research concluding that children raised by same-sex parents fared no worse than those raised by opposite-sex parents. Golinksi’s brief criticized the American College of Pediatricians’ use of Regnerus’ study:
[The American College of Pediatricians] cites a recent paper by Mark Regnerus purporting to present empirical evidence of differences in outcomes for children raised by lesbian and gay parents. … This study, however, compared children of “intact biological famil[ies]” not to children raised by “intact” same-sex couples but instead primarily to children raised by single parents and in unstable family settings, with loosely-applied criteria for categorizing a parent as lesbian or gay. The paper itself concedes that it cannot answer any “questions of causation.” This paper does nothing to undercut the consistent social science findings over decades of research.
On Tuesday, BLAG answered with a brief that cites Regnerus’ study in defending what it describes as one of the rational bases behind DOMA: “the centuries-old wisdom that children generally benefit from being raised by their own biological mothers and fathers, and that law and government should encourage and support that outcome.”
BLAG’s brief describes the Regnerus study as one of “two significant studies” published in recent weeks “undermining Ms. Golinski’s social science theory.” BLAG adds:
Unlike virtually all of the previous studies in this area, the Regnerus study included a representative sample that was large enough to draw statistically powerful conclusions regarding comparative outcomes of people whose parents had homosexual relationships and those who were raised by their married biological mothers and fathers—and it discovered that the former group reported significantly worse outcomes on a large number of key indicators.
BLAG also pushes back on criticism of Regnerus’ study, citing a joint statement from 18 social scientists who have defended it. BLAG’s brief further states:
In any event, the study’s alleged shortcoming—that adults raised from infancy by same-sex couples are so rare that it is impossible to obtain a large sampling of them … “despite significant efforts” to do so… —only highlights the fact that all of the research in this field is in its infancy. That fact underscores the rationality of Congress’ decision to proceed with caution.
The other recent study BLAG cites in support of the premise that children are better off when raised by two heterosexual parents was published in the Journal of Marriage and Family in May. That study, authored by Daniel Potter of the American Institutes for Research, found that children raised in same-sex-parent families scored lower on academic tests than children raised in two-parent households by a straight couple. Potter found that children raised by same-sex couples scored similarly to children in other types of “nontraditional families” — meaning families that involve stepparents, single parents, cohabiting parents, or another nontraditional structure.
The University of Texas says it should not have to release documents related to a controversial parenting study conducted by one of its professors, citing as one of its reasons an “ongoing compliance investigation” into allegations of scientific misconduct.
A university spokesperson described the review as an automatic inquiry that was triggered by an outside complaint. According to the spokesperson, such an inquiry, which must be completed in 60 days, is standard procedure when a complaint is filed. The results will be used to decide whether a more serious investigation is warranted.
About two weeks after UT associate professor of sociology Mark Regnerus published his findings from the “New Family Structures Study” – which he claims show that children raised by gay parents fare worse than those raised by straight parents – a pro-gay-rights blogger filed a complaint with UT, accusing Regnerus of several counts of misconduct. The complaint followed sweeping criticisms from journalists and scholars that the study was methodologically flawed.
On June 14, The American Independent filed an open records request with the university asking for all documents pertaining to the genesis the New Family Structures Study, as well as all communication between Regnerus and personnel from the Witherspoon Institute and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the two conservative organizations that funded the study. TAI also requested any communications that might exist between Regnerus and certain outside groups and activists that oppose same-sex marriage.
On June 21, New Civil Rights Movement blogger Scott Rose filed a “scientific misconduct complaint” with the university, accusing Regnerus of an assortment of ethics violations in conjunction with the study.
On June 28, the university informed TAI it would file a brief with the Texas Office of the Attorney General seeking to withhold documents we requested. Then on July 6, the university forwarded TAI its brief to the attorney general (embedded below), in which university attorney Neera Chatterjee argues the school should be able to withhold all of UT’s records on the New Family Structures Study “during the pendency of the investigation and review.” According to the brief, releasing the documents “would interfere with, and potentially compromise, the University’s ability to continue its investigation in a meaningful way because it will be more difficult for the University to receive accurate and complete information from the individuals relevant to the investigation.”
The brief cites a provision in Texas law that exempts from disclosure information if it is collected or produced “in a compliance program investigation and releasing the information would interfere with an ongoing compliance investigation.”
According to the brief, as part of this compliance investigation, the university’s research integrity officer, Robert Peterson, “has begun the inquiry by sequestering relevant documents and meeting with Dr. Regnerus to inform him that a formal inquiry has been started.” Chatterjee added that Peterson has started putting together an inquiry panel that already includes two faculty members and that two additional faculty members will be selected.
Still, the university’s public relations team has specifically objected to the use of the word “investigation.”
Rose forwarded TAI an email that David Ochsner, director of public affairs for the College of Liberal Arts, sent to New Civil Rights Movement editor David Badash, objecting to a July 1 post that had originally described the university’s inquiry as an “investigation.” Ochsner’s email reads, in part: “The University of Texas at Austin has not ‘opened an investigation.’ What Mr. Rose is referring to is a response from our Office of Sponsored Projects to his recently filed complaint. That in no way constitutes the opening of an official investigation by the university.”
And in an article published by UT’s student newspaper, The Daily Texan, Ochsner is quoted as saying, “Anytime somebody makes an allegation like that, it automatically triggers what we call an inquiry, which is just a preliminary fact-finding exercise. … In an inquiry, we’re just acknowledging that there has been an allegation made.” The paper reported that Ochsner “said the study is still in the inquiry phase and a formal investigation will not begin unless compelling evidence of scientific misconduct is discovered.”
When TAI recently reached out to UT, media relations director Gary Susswein reacted with surprise when told the Regnerus inquiry had been described by the school’s counsel as an “investigation.”
“This is in the inquiry stage only,” he said. “If there is an allegation of misconduct, there is first an inquiry to determine if an investigation is warranted.”
Susswein called back later and clarified his initial statement.
“It is not inaccurate to refer to the ongoing inquiry as a compliance investigation,” he said.
He justified the media department’s confusion, explaining that official school policy distinguishes between an “inquiry” and an “investigation.” In an email, Susswein wrote:
Here is an excerpt from the policies that lay out the difference between an inquiry (which is automatically triggered by by any complaint of scientific misconduct and is standard operating procedure) and an investigation (which would follow an inquiry if warranted). Again, these are our internal definitions. We are in the inquiry stage.
Inquiry means gathering information and initial fact-finding to determine whether an allegation or apparent instance of scientific misconduct warrants an investigation.
Investigation means the formal examination and evaluation of all relevant facts to determine if misconduct has occurred, and, if so, to determine the responsible person and the seriousness of the misconduct.
The attorney general’s office will now determine whether the school must turn over the information requested.
In the brief, Chatterjee also cites other potential exceptions to the state’s disclosure law, including the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, which protects against the release of student-identifiable information, and a provision exempting certain scientific and other information from disclosure.
Banner photo: the University of Texas at Austin (Flickr/Jeff Gunn)
Just one day after the results of a controversial parenting study were released to the public, the research was used – and misrepresented – in a federal court brief defending the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act.
The brief was filed by a conservative medical group at the urging of the Alliance Defending Freedom, an influential religious right legal organization. It illustrates the right’s strategy of using the new research – which was funded by two conservative organizations – in legal battles to preserve bans on gay marriage.
On June 10, the journal Social Science Research published the findings of University of Texas sociologist Mark Regnerus’ “New Family Structures Study,” which compared people raised in biologically intact two-parent families to people raised in families in which one of the parents had a same-sex romantic relationship at some point. Regnerus found that the children of parents who had a same-sex relationship fared poorly by comparison. Almost immediately, the study was criticized for using a “loaded classification system” to engage in an apples-to-oranges comparison.
The day after Regnerus’ study first appeared online, a conservative group called the American College of Pediatricians cited it in a “friend of the court” brief in Golinski v. United States Office of Personnel Management, one of the ongoing federal lawsuits challenging DOMA. The ACP’s use of the study was first reported on The New Civil Rights Movement website.
In February, a federal district court had ruled that a key section of DOMA was unconstitutional. In its brief to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Gainesville, Fla.-based pediatricians’ group noted that the district judge had cited research concluding that children were not harmed by being raised by same-sex parents.
“The court below did not have at its disposal the most current research on child outcomes for children raised by same-sex couples,” argued the ACP, referring to Regnerus’ newly released research. The brief then summarized “some of the statistically significant differences where children raised by two women fared worse than children raised by married biological parents” — including “cohabitation,” “receiving welfare while growing up,” “currently receiving public assistance,” “current employment,” “current unemployment,” “having an affair while married or cohabiting,” “having been touched sexually by a parent or other adult,” and “ever having been forced to have sex against their will.”
ACP is a nonprofit group with a history of controversial statements. Its website describes same-sex parenting as “potentially hazardous to children” and elsewhere asserts that “sexual reorientation therapy can be effective.”
In an interview, ACP President Dr. Den Trumbull said that his group was asked to write the brief by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal organization based in Scottsdale, Ariz., that was known until this month as the Alliance Defense Fund.
Trumbull, who is a pediatrician in Montgomery, Ala., said the Alliance Defending Freedom’s legal department contacted the ACP about a week or two before the brief was filed.
“It was brought to our attention that there was a need for some clarification on the benefits of marriage versus same-sex unions, civil unions, or other configurations of marriage,” Trumbull said. “We are there to assist policymakers in any way we can to help them understand or publicize the correct science.”
The Alliance Defending Freedom, which was co-founded by Focus on the Family’s James Dobson and boasts a $34 million budget, confirmed this account. An official with the legal group said in an email that it had suggested that ACP file the brief “because of the organization’s valuable contribution to studying how parenting structure impacts child outcomes, and especially their research concluding that the ideal structure is a married mother and father.”
The brief references a number of academic studies. Both the Alliance Defending Freedom and the ACP said they did not receive an advance copy of Regnerus’ study.
Misrepresenting the study
Trumbull’s group also misrepresented Regnerus’ research in a way that obscures some of the harshest criticism of the study.
The ACP’s brief repeatedly asserts that the study assessed outcomes for “children raised by same-sex couples” or “children raised by two women” or “two men.”
But what Regnerus actually did was compare people who spent their entire childhood living with their married, biological parents to people who grew up in a family in which at least one of their parents had a same-sex romantic relationship at some point. In other words, the group of people Regnerus coded as having a “gay father” or a “lesbian mother” consisted not simply of people raised by two same-sex parents, but also of people raised by parents who were separated or divorced or whose parents had same-sex affairs.
Indeed, only a small percentage of the children Regnerus coded as having gay parents said they had been raised in a same-sex household for more than a few years. According to the study:
Among those who said their mother had a same-sex relationship, 91% reported living with their mother while she was in the romantic relationship, and 57% said they had lived with their mother and her partner for at least 4 months at some point prior to age 18. A smaller share (23%) said they had spent at least 3 years living in the same household with a romantic partner of their mother’s.
Among those who said their father had a same-sex relationship, however, 42% reported living with him while he was in a same-sex romantic relationship, and 23% reported living with him and his partner for at least 4 months (but less than 2% said they had spent at least 3 years together in the same household) …
Regnerus, who did not respond to a request for comment, has further acknowledged: “We had only two cases in which mom and her partner were together for 18 years. We’ve got only six cases where mom and her partner were reported to have stayed together for 10 or more years, and 18 cases for five years.”
Slate’s William Saletan has criticized this methodology as a “loaded classification system” that “produced predictable results.” Saletan suggested that the study actually bolstered the case for gay marriage, writing that it shows that “kids from broken homes headed by gay people develop the same problems as kids from broken homes headed by straight people.”
Debra Umberson, a sociology professor and colleague of Regnerus’ at the University of Texas, called the study “irresponsible and reckless” and labeled it “pseudo-science.”
Asked about the discrepancy, Trumbull defended the ACP’s brief. He said his group believes that Regnerus’ study compares children raised by married biological parents to those raised by same-sex couples. He said the fact that most of the supposed gay parents Regnerus’ study looked at were not intact couples likely had more to do with what he suggested was the unstable nature of same-sex relationships than it did with a flaw in the study’s design.
“The American College of Pediatricians stands by its amicus brief,” he said.
Though Trumbull said that the New Family Structures Study was “not a perfect study,” he argued that the study’s merits outweighed its weaknesses and that it was “worthy of the court knowing.”
“That study was the first large, randomized sample looking at the comparison between those raised by adults in same-sex relationships with those raised by heterosexual couples,” he said. “The reason we feel this study is useful is it counters the strong unequivocal conclusions that other researchers have made from much weaker studies saying the child outcomes of those raised by same sex parents is equal.”
“There’s not enough data for society or the courts to move away from the fundamental position that the optimal environment [for children] is the biological married heterosexual family,” Trumbull continued.
The ACP brief appears to be consistent with a strategy put forward by prominent opponents of same-sex marriage after the release of Regnerus’ research.
Maggie Gallagher, who co-founded the National Organization for Marriage, said on the Christian Broadcasting Network that the study would be “important in the legal cases as they progress.”
Matthew J. Franck of the Witherspoon Institute – the group that funded the bulk of Regnerus’ study and whose co-founder, Robert George, is also NOM’s chairman emeritus – has similarly predicted that the new study will be useful in the courts.
“How much does this new study matter for the legal debate over same-sex marriage? A very great deal,” Franck wrote. “Same-sex marriage advocates have argued in state and federal courts that traditional marriage laws have no ‘rational basis,’ or that they fail some other more stringent form of ‘scrutiny’ under constitutional provisions guaranteeing due process and the equal protection of the laws.”
Frank concluded that when lawsuits over DOMA and California’s same-sex marriage ban reach the Supreme Court, “the counsels of good social science can be added to the standard norms of constitutionalism to counsel against the willful judicial invention of a right to same-sex marriage.”
The University of Texas is arguing it should not have to release documents related to a controversial parenting study conducted by one of its professors, citing as one of its reasons an “ongoing compliance investigation” into allegations of scientific misconduct.
A university spokesperson described the review as an automatic inquiry that was triggered by an outside complaint. According to the spokesperson, such an inquiry, which must be completed in 60 days, is standard procedure when a complaint is filed. The results will be used to decide whether a more serious investigation is warranted.
About two weeks after UT associate professor of sociology Mark Regnerus published his findings from the “New Family Structures Study” – which he claims show that children raised by gay parents fare worse than those raised by straight parents – a pro-gay-rights blogger filed a complaint with UT, accusing Regnerus of several counts of misconduct. The complaint followed sweeping criticisms from journalists and scholars that the study was methodologically flawed.
On June 14, The American Independent filed an open records request with the university asking for all documents pertaining to the genesis the New Family Structures Study, as well as all communication between Regnerus and personnel from the Witherspoon Institute and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the two conservative organizations that funded the study. TAI also requested any communications that might exist between Regnerus and certain outside groups and activists that oppose same-sex marriage.
On June 21, New Civil Rights Movement blogger Scott Rose filed a “scientific misconduct complaint” with the university, accusing Regnerus of an assortment of ethics violations in conjunction with the study.
On June 28, the university informed TAI it would file a brief with the Texas Office of the Attorney General seeking to withhold documents we requested. Then on July 6, the university forwarded TAI its brief to the attorney general (embedded below), in which university attorney Neera Chatterjee argues the school should be able to withhold all of UT’s records on the New Family Structures Study “during the pendency of the investigation and review.” According to the brief, releasing the documents “would interfere with, and potentially compromise, the University’s ability to continue its investigation in a meaningful way because it will be more difficult for the University to receive accurate and complete information from the individuals relevant to the investigation.”
The brief cites a provision in Texas law that exempts from disclosure information if it is collected or produced “in a compliance program investigation and releasing the information would interfere with an ongoing compliance investigation.”
According to the brief, as part of this compliance investigation, the university’s research integrity officer, Robert Peterson, “has begun the inquiry by sequestering relevant documents and meeting with Dr. Regnerus to inform him that a formal inquiry has been started.” Chatterjee added that Peterson has started putting together an inquiry panel that already includes two faculty members and that two additional faculty members will be selected.
Still, the university’s public relations team has specifically objected to the use of the word “investigation.”
Rose forwarded TAI an email that David Ochsner, director of public affairs for the College of Liberal Arts, sent to New Civil Rights Movement editor David Badash, objecting to a July 1 post that had originally described the university’s inquiry as an “investigation.” Ochsner’s email reads, in part: “The University of Texas at Austin has not ‘opened an investigation.’ What Mr. Rose is referring to is a response from our Office of Sponsored Projects to his recently filed complaint. That in no way constitutes the opening of an official investigation by the university.”
And in an article published by UT’s student newspaper, The Daily Texan, Ochsner is quoted as saying, “Anytime somebody makes an allegation like that, it automatically triggers what we call an inquiry, which is just a preliminary fact-finding exercise. … In an inquiry, we’re just acknowledging that there has been an allegation made.” The paper reported that Ochsner “said the study is still in the inquiry phase and a formal investigation will not begin unless compelling evidence of scientific misconduct is discovered.”
When TAI recently reached out to UT, media relations director Gary Susswein reacted with surprise when told the Regnerus inquiry had been described by the school’s counsel as an “investigation.”
“This is in the inquiry stage only,” he said. “If there is an allegation of misconduct, there is first an inquiry to determine if an investigation is warranted.”
Susswein called back later and clarified his initial statement.
“It is not inaccurate to refer to the ongoing inquiry as a compliance investigation,” he said.
He justified the media department’s confusion, explaining that official school policy distinguishes between an “inquiry” and an “investigation.” In an email, Susswein wrote:
Here is an exerpt from the policies that lay out the difference between an inquiry (which is automatically triggered by by any complaint of scientific misconduct and is standard operating procedure) and an investigation (which would follow an inquiry if warranted). Again, these are our internal definitions. We are in the inquiry stage.
Inquiry means gathering information and initial fact-finding to determine whether an allegation or apparent instance of scientific misconduct warrants an investigation.
Investigation means the formal examination and evaluation of all relevant facts to determine if misconduct has occurred, and, if so, to determine the responsible person and the seriousness of the misconduct.
The attorney general’s office will now determine whether the school must turn over the information requested.
In the brief, Chatterjee also cites other potential exceptions to the state’s disclosure law, including the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, which protects against the release of student-identifiable information, and a provision exempting certain scientific and other information from disclosure.
Banner photo: the University of Texas at Austin (Flickr/Jeff Gunn)