Author: Warren Throckmorton

Last week, I reported the concerns of peace advocates, Consistent Life, about the upcoming American Psychological Association report regarding potential mental health consequences of abortion. In one of their letters to APA President Alan Kazdin, CL Executive Director, Bill Samuel, wrote:

It is accordingly with great concern we note APA has not taken sufficient care with a highly volatile issue, that of abortion. APA has held a position of abortion as being a civil right for women since 1969, and therefore has a clear political stand. Yet the Task Force on Mental Health and Abortion had no call for nominations; it was formed by Division 35, whose position is stronger and more focused than that of the national organization; and the final make-up of the task force had half the members as strong public advocates of the pro-choice view. Advocates of the view that abortion is violence to both unborn children and to women, which could balance such biases, are ominously absent. There are several well-qualified researchers who would have been pleased to serve on the panel, had the panel been selected with balance in mind.
Consider also that the report of this task force is scheduled to come out during an election year, 2008. The APA position is in accord with that of one of the major political parties, and in opposition to that of the other. When a prestigious organization puts out a report on a politically volatile issue at a time when political passions run particularly high, any imbalance on the task force will not pass unnoticed. Surely critics and observers will highlight the fact that members of such a task force were unbalanced in favor of those whose views matched the political position of the organization. The absence of those who could best challenge assumptions, provide alternative explanations, and offer differing interpretations of the same data will not be overlooked. We hope you will pause to reflect upon how partisan this will appear.

Dr. Kazdin wrote back to say that the APA report “must be grounded in the strongest, peer-reviewed science available…” This is of course the correct answer but I maintain that the Consistent Life people have raised valid points of concern. The task force report is to be released in August at the APA convention if approved by the Council of Representatives.
Beyond the appearance of bias, there is a more obvious indication of how the APA will report the research on abortion and mental health consequences. In the June 2008, APA Monitor, Rebecca Clay wrote an article on how the right wing misuses scientific research. In her article titled, “Science vs. ideology: Psychologists fight back against the misuse of research,” Clay interviews abortion researcher Nancy Adler regarding how anti-abortion psychologists are seeking legitimacy for their perspective by, shudder, doing research and reporting in peer-reviewed journals. Do you think the task force will see things much differently than Dr. Adler?

In other issue areas, special-interest groups have assumed the trappings of science to bolster ideology-driven claims. One example is so-called “post-abortion syndrome,” a scientific-sounding name for something most researchers say doesn’t exist. Nancy E. Adler, PhD, a professor of medical psychology at the University of California, San Francisco, is one of them. She has found that the rate of distress among women who’ve had abortions is the same as that of women who’ve given birth. Adler and other experts reviewed the literature in the late 1980s as part of an APA panel and found no evidence of a post-abortion syndrome. Even the anti-abortion Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, MD, refused to issue a report on abortion’s supposed psychological impact when President Ronald Reagan asked him to, citing the lack of evidence of harm.
Since then, says Adler, anti-abortion advocates have become more world-wise.
“They’re using scientific terminology,” she points out. They’re also gaining credibility by getting published in mainstream journals.
But such research often has methodological problems, Adler claims.
“Women are not randomly assigned to have abortions,” she points out. “Women who are having abortions are having them in the context of an unwanted pregnancy, which usually has some other very stressful aspects. Their partners may have left them. They may have been raped.”
In addition, says Adler, proponents of the syndrome don’t mention the base rate of depression and other psychological problems in society as a whole. And they always attribute such problems to abortion rather than any other possible causes.
A new APA Task Force on Mental Health and Abortion will examine such issues in a report later this year.

I think this is probably signals how the APA’s task force report will turn out. The good guys use good methods and the bad guys use the “trappings of science” and are being sneaky by “getting published in mainstream journals.” I guess the way to tell the good research from the bad is not the quality of peer-reviewed work but the ideology of the researcher. What I get from Clay’s article is this: When an APA-approved policy position is supported, it is science; otherwise, it is ideology.

Why would you need a gun in your legislative office?
Oh, now I get it…

OKLAHOMA CITY – Outspoken state Rep. Sally Kern was turned back by security Wednesday morning when she arrived at the Capitol carrying a pistol in her purse.
Kern, R-Oklahoma City, was nearly as surprised as security when a camera spotted the small handgun when her purse rolled through the camera-equipped conveyer.
The lawmaker, who has a permit to carry a concealed weapon, said she routinely removes it before entering the Capitol, but just forgot this time.
Kern said she asked security if she “could put the gun up.” She returned to her vehicle, left the weapon there, and returned to the Capitol for a meeting.
The lawmaker was not arrested.
Department of Public Safety spokesman Chris West said, “We tell security to use their heads,” and assess this kind of situation before taking action.

Wake up and smell the hormones.
I wonder what would happen if we varied sexual orientation? Would the involuntary responses say something about learning or about orientation?

Jim Belushi is a funny guy. He apparently is also into “the men’s movement.” He gave an interview to the Mankind Project’s journal (which normally is password protected) you can read via a link on the MKP website. The interview was conducted by MKPer Reid Baer and contains what is portrayed as wit and wisdom about true masculinity in the context of relationship with a woman. The title of Belushi’s book is “Real Men Don’t Apologize” and there are some rules he recommends:
Here are Belushi’s 5 Commandments for his wife:

Thou Shalt Not Shush Me
Thou Shalt Not Steal
Thou Shalt Never Banish Me to the Couch
Thou Shalt Not compete With me
Thou Shalt Not Expect an Apology for Something I am Not sorrieth For

There are many more tributes to the frat guy approach to masculinity. Here is another:

“Women say they want a man who is kind, gentle, compassionate, polite, considerate and nurturing,” Belushi intoned. “Bullshit! They just described a chick! Women really need a man who is mysterious, powerful, passionate, confident, unpredictable and a little dangerous. That’s the guy they will sleep with … the most interesting person in the world to a woman is someone they know nothing about. The stuff they come up with in their own head is a lot more interesting than you. That’s why so many women out there have a crush on Tony Soprano. He cheats on his wife, works in an illegal business and kills people.”

And then more specific to the masculinity work of MKP, Belushi advises:

“I’ve been doing men’s work for a long time because I’ve had to … to survive,” he said. “There’s a lot of healing that we men need because we’ve got some wounds to deal with. Women may want to fix them, but they can’t. We have to use the tribal approach and let the men work with the men.”

So women cannot help men be men. This is a common theme in the MKP stuff I have read. Women are of some other tribe and the coming together is apparently not for companionship or for mutual completion. In fact, I am not sure what (other) role women play for men when I read

“Love without sex is friendship, sex without love is spring break, and if you want companionship, get a dog.”

Ok, let me open it up. Does this look like a respectful, winning approach to heterosexual relationships? This is one of two featured interviews on the MKP page, so they must think this is good stuff. I am wondering what wives think reading this interview — (“Is that what my husband will come home expecting?”). Readers, chime in here…
PS – This is the thought for the day (7/23/08) on the MKP website:

Thought for the Day:
When a man finds his own heart, he outgrows his unreal romanticism about women, as well as the neurotic need to please them.

Call me neurotic but I like to make my wife happy. And besides, I do not know what that even means. To me, it sounds like, when a man gets self-centered, he puts himself first. Is the MKP vision of manhood a guy who finds some great thing to conquer and then puts that mission in first place?

On another post, a commenter (Dave G) brought up this case which has raised some eyebrows among academics. Here is the media version:

The controversy centers on an incident in June 2007, when Sheldon was asked by a student in a human heredity class about heredity’s impact on “homosexual behavior in males and females.” Among other references, Sheldon noted a German study demonstrating some link between maternal stress and homosexual behavior in males, according to the lawsuit.
After a student complained, college officials investigated and dismissed Sheldon, an adjunct professor at the school since January 2004. Court papers say the student expressed concern that Sheldon’s response was “offensive and unscientific.”
In the lawsuit and in a letter sent to the college district’s board of trustees, Sheldon, a veteran biology instructor, maintains she was simply providing students with an exchange on the “nature vs. nurture” aspect of sexual orientation. While acknowledging she was offering views that may have been controversial, Sheldon argues that it was relevant to the course work and part of important classroom dialogue.
“The textbook itself points out that the causes of homosexual behavior are a subject of debate in the scientific community,” said David Hacker, Sheldon’s lawyer. “This teacher did nothing more than explain this fact.”

The Foundation of Individual Rights in Education has taken on the issue and has a lengthy description of the case as well.
A biology professor, P.Z. Myers, who describes himself as a “godless liberal,” blogs about this at Pharyngula (H/t Brady). He casts a somewhat skeptical eye on the complaint and makes some good points in the process. He provides links to relevant documents for those interested.
Coincidentally, this past week, I was researching for my book by reading Lisa Diamond’s new book Sexual Fluidity. By the way, this is an excellent book with a wonderful description of her research. On page 39, the maternal stress hypothesis is mentioned:

Another line of research on the neuroendocrine theory concerns male children born to mothers who were exposed to extremely high levels of stress during pregnancy. Animal research has found that such experiences can affect sexual differentiation in utero through a delay of the testosterone surge that influences brain masculinization.

Here she cites two studies, one led by Michael Bailey and the other by Lee Ellis, along with a review of biological studies with Brian Mustanski as the first author. Professor Sheldon was citing Dorner’s work on hormones and brain differentiation. However, I suspect when this goes to trial, page 39 of Diamond’s book might also be presented in the court room.
Given what I have read regarding this situation, I like Sheldon’s chances in court. Professors present controversial material about subjects daily. Some (much?) of that material we do not agree with but present to help students become aware of the field as it is.