Is Induced Abortion Evidence-Based Medical Practice?

Abstract

Leaders of medical schools and health professional associations in the United States have affirmed their commitment to induced abortion by persistently asserting that the procedure is evidence-based medical practice. There is an objective structured process by which the status of “evidence-based” is attained. It requires a detailed description and documentation of the patient’s disease, illness or condition; an explanation for how the treatment intervention ameliorates the problem; the outcomes by which the effectiveness of the treatment is measured; and the comparison of the treatment with other alternative interventions available. We provide historical context which indicates that staunch abortion advocate thought leaders considered the right to abortion on demand to be inconsistent with the concept of evidence-based practice. We summarize the research on the reasons why women choose abortion, and we review the questions, designs and findings available in the relevant Cochrane Library systematic reviews. Our conclusion is that the quality of abortion science in general is quite weak, that the data necessary for valid research is scarce, and that the claims of evidence-based induced abortion are unsupported by the existing body of published knowledge.