One Megadonor Is Crippling the Pro-Life Movement—and No One Knows Who It Is

[Judi Lynn]

One Megadonor Is Crippling the Pro-Life Movement—and No One Knows Who It Is

Well, some probably know. But they aren't talking.

Nina Martin, ProPublicaJul. 14, 2016 6:00 AM

Back in January, as the Supreme Court was preparing for its most important abortion case in a generation, some four dozen social scientists submitted a brief explaining why they believed key portions of Texas law HB 2 should be struck down. The brief was a 58-page compendium of research on everything from the relative dangers of abortion versus childbirth to the correlation between abortion barriers and postpartum depression. "In this politically challenged area, it is particularly important that assertions about health and safety are evaluated using reliable scientific evidence," the researchers declared.

Six months later, the material they submitted clearly helped shape Justice Stephen Breyer's majority opinion in Whole Women's Health v Hellerstedt, which found critical elements of HB 2 unconstitutional. This decision also handed a resounding though less noticed victory to private donors who've spent more than a decade quietly pouring at least $200 million dollars into the scientists' work, creating an influential abortion-research complex that has left abortion opponents in the dust.

The research initiative dates back at least to the early 2000s and became more urgent after the high court held in 2007 that in cases of "medical and scientific uncertainty," legislatures could have "wide discretion" to pass laws restricting abortion. Since then, a primary objective of abortion rights supporters has been to establish a high level of medical certainty—both about the safety of the procedure and about what happens when a woman's reproductive options are drastically curtailed or eliminated.

There's little or no publicly funded research on this controversial subject in the United States, so for years basic information was lacking—from how often patients have complications to what happens to women who want abortions but can't obtain them.

More:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/07/abortion-research-buffett