Hi, Ludo.
One difference between the site that schraf cited and a typical anti-abortion site is that shraf's site lists the sources of the information used. If you want, you can actually look up the papers that are cited and see whether the information is taken out of context and, more importantly, determine whether the methodology is sound; you can also find out whether the sources are peer-reviewed journals (or reports citing peer-reviewed journals), and so the information has passed through a process where experts in the field evaluate the methodologies used and whether the methodologies can lead to the conclusions that are drawn.
This reminds me of an incident that I have already related here. On another message board someone claimed that women who have abortions are more likely to have emotional problems. He cited an anti-abortion web site; as you point out, it is reasonable to wonder whether the site's bias has led them to pull information out of context or to cite poorly conducted studies. Rather than look up a pro-abortion site (which would have the same potential problems), I decided to go directly to Pub Med to find out what was in the actual research literature.
I already knew the claim was bogus; what I expected to find was, as an estimate, less than 30% of the studies would show a correlation between poor mental health and abortion and the rest no correlation. Instead, I did not find a single study at all that supported the idea that abortion is emotionally traumatic for the woman. Every single study that I found (I will stress, though, that I am not an expert at looking things up) concluded either that there was no correlation between mental health and abortion, or that negative mental health effects correlated strongly with the religious beliefs of the mother.
I have little doubt that if we were to look at the actual research literature, that shraf's claims would be verified. If you want, you can do a literature search yourself (that would be a useful skill to learn in any case) and report what you find. If what you find contradicts shraf's claims then maybe someone (probably schraf herself) will be compelled to do her own search, and then this discussion would actually become based on facts.
Of course, ultimately whether abortion is right or wrong is a moral argument, and so the facts may have little bearing on this (except, of course, that we can discard arguments that have their basis on incorrect premises).
Edited to correct a typo (and a pretty funny one, too).
This message has been edited by Chiroptera, 17-Mar-2006 05:39 PM
"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt
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