An article that critiqued a study on what happened after women did not get abortions that they sought has been retracted after observers raised concerns that the peer review process had not been objective.
The article, “The Turnaway Study: A Case of Self-Correction in Science Upended by Political Motivation and Unvetted Findings,” was originally published in Frontiers in Psychology in June of 2022.
The Turnaway Study itself was an effort of researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, which followed women who had received abortions and women who sought abortions but did not get them because they were too far along in their pregnancies “to describe the mental health, physical health, and socioeconomic consequences of receiving an abortion compared to carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term,” according to its website.
As we reported in November, the journal placed an expression of concern on the paper after critics pointed out that the editor and all four reviewers (whose names Frontiers published on the first page of the paper) were associated with pro-life organizations. The researchers behind the Turnaway Study responded to the article’s critiques in a commentary published in December.
The paper’s author, Priscilla K. Coleman, a professor of human development and family studies at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, told us at the time that she would “actively pursue all options available including legal avenues to rectify the situation.” (She also said she would “pursue all avenues available to me should your article, which is premature at this time cause me any additional reputational harm.”)
On December 26, Frontiers in Psychology retracted Coleman’s article with the following notice:
Following publication, undisclosed competing interests were brought to our attention, which undermined the objective editorial assessment of the article during the peer review process.
Frontiers conducted a post-publication assessment of the article, including consulting with independent expertise, which concluded that the article does not meet the standards of publication of Frontiers in Psychology.
This retraction was approved by the Field Chief Editor of Frontiers in Psychology and the Chief Executive Editor of Frontiers. The authors did not agree with this retraction.
In response to our request for comment on the retraction, Coleman told us:
The only information ever provided to me by Frontiers (just prior to posting) was the public retraction notice. Relying solely on this statement, I was asked if I agreed or disagreed with the retraction. Via my attorneys, I requested clarity to make the determination. No further information was provided regarding the rationale or internal findings. Frontiers responded that they would get back to us on substance in the New Year; yet that same day (December 26th) they proceeded with the retraction, posted the original ambiguous statement, and inappropriate presumed my response. Given Frontiers’ membership in COPE, it is difficult to reconcile my experience in this matter with their obligations as a member.
Hat tip: Chelsea Polis
Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, add us to your RSS reader, or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in our database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at [email protected].
It is possible that someone who identifies as a “Pro-Life Ob-Gyn”, and who refuses to prescribe birth control, was not an ideal reviewer.
But as you note, the reviewers’ affiliations are not hidden, so how the publisher can describe them as “undisclosed competing interests” is anyone’s guess.
This begs the questions of if only pro-abortion folks should be allowed to peer review? I believe that it’s bad that all reviewers were of a particular political bent. However, I would not say that no one of a specific political bent should be allowed to peer review.
Lets turn this around and say that the pro-abortion stances of peer reviewers invalidates their objectivity. How many papers would have to be retracted? I’d guess quite a bit, going only by statistics on political beliefs in academia.
Justin, your argument seems to be grounded on the assumption that pro-abortion and anti-abortion positions are equally grounded on solid science. Are they?
Yes Guititio, they are equally grounded in science.
Morality is a purely scientific notion, is that your stance?
Let’s kill all the sick, disabled, and those not well adapted to the modern world? Science backs this.
Or is morality distinct from science, and advances in science do not make what was once immoral moral?
Scientific advances absolutely, unequivocally impact moral judgements. If transplanting a fetus became as easy and simple as adopting a child, the abortion debate would look very different indeed, and many pro-choicers would immediately switch sides.
Samuel, what evidence can you offer in support of your claim that both positions “… are equally grounded in science”? You have none. Sure, I’ll grant you that the subject of abortion is a complex moral issue that can transcend science. But please, keep your eye on the ball: We are not discussing the ethics of abortion. Instead we are talking about obvious lapses in the way the paper in question was processed for publication and a retraction that was not only in part based on those lapses but, apparently, on the scientific worthiness of its content (see Chelsea’s post). So, spare us your pseudo moral high ground which, as with most anti-abortion opponents, is largely silent about the often negative consequences of unwanted births for both the parents, children, and society, and, especially, about a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body.
Why of course they are not. The pro abortion position is completely anti science and rejects biological reality.
It’s ironic to see you writing about moral highground when you’re the only one on this page who is attacking people’s identity. You hold it against the pro-life scientists that they do not talk about “the often negative consequences of unwanted births for both the parents, children, and society, and, especially, about a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body”. But in the Turnaway Study itself you can find, on page 126 of the book, that 96% of women do not regret the fact that they were not given access to abortion. Guess how many pro-choice scientists and platforms have quoted that part of the study?
My bottom line is this: the idea that you can call pro-life affiliation an undisclosed conflict of interest is testimony to the blind spot we have as a society in that whoever is pro-choice seems to be viewed as neutral. But besides having the conviction that women should be free to have abortions, a pro-choice view also must hold that it can be permissible to terminate the life of an unborn human organism. That’s not neutral and therefore every paper that was written and reviewed solely by people who are pro-choice is now up for post-publication assessment by default. That should scare you if you were truly interested in keeping science pure and clean.
Chris, in your opinion and for purposes of keeping science ‘pure and clean’, what would be a neutral position in this debate?
Ideally, there would be a balance of perspectives. I do not know enough about this case to comment, but I am an academic who believes that published studies undergoing a peer-review need balanced reviews from multiple perspectives. Generally, the responsibility to publish objective research lies with the reviewer.
Your use of “pro-abortion” gives away your own politics here. Pro-choice activists are not “pro-abortion.” They regard abortion as a private civil matter, to be decided between a woman and her doctor. Your argument about the supposed lack of objectivity of “pro-abortion” scientists hinges on the this misrepresentation: you created an equivalence where there is none (a form of fallacious both-sideism).
The “pro-life” movement’s position that abortion is murder leaves no room for nuance (so 10-year-old incest victims must be forced to give birth, and every person who miscarries is a murder suspect). We have recently seen how this plays out in the real world, harming and criminalizing pregnant people and their health care providers. The pro-life movement has waged a long-running (and well-documented) campaign of deception, threat, intimidation, and violence against abortion seekers and (even suspected) abortion providers.
The pro-choice movement acknowledges the complexity of situations in which pregnant girls and women must make decisions about childbearing and relegates the discussion to the private sphere, within certain boundaries. One can be both pro-choice and anti-abortion, if one recognizes limits to imposing one’s own will and morality upon others.
I’d argue that pro-choice scientists are more likely to adhere to best practices in science when faced with studies that support the public health benefits of accessible abortion, and that scientists who are pro-life activists are much more likely to believe the ends justifies the means, sacrificing scientific principles to achieve their moral goals.
Your misogynist language (pregnant people) gives away your wokeism and your support for gender identity ideology. You have no leg to stand on.
If all papers follow the rule that contrarians have to peer review i have not a problem.
Since seems instead that rule do not exist, then if there is objections to the paper a counter paper can be made.
“I’d argue that pro-choice scientists are more likely to adhere to best practices in science”
Is it pro-science killing a baby because your career can advance at pace you want or it is even just an inconvenience ?
If you need to kill you need to have a strong motive, like life of the mother, not just for convenience.
And there are 2 bodies. Not only 1. So one is imposing their will in the other.
A well reasoned comment
The retraction was based upon the association of the authors and not the logic, data, or methods presented? The retraction should be retracted.
Precisely.
If the paper is bad let a counter paper appear.
Name me one reviewer who is completely neutral on Abortion!
If you do find one kindly supply solid evidence why he/she is completely neutral.
The neutrality should not only be on academic grounds but should include a myriad of factors including but not exclusively social and cultural background, religious beliefs, political affiliation, and financial status.
Waiting………………………..
Some comments above seem to assume that the paper was retracted *because* of the affiliations of the reviewers. I have no reason to believe that this is true.
It is true that an Editor (affiliated with the anti-abortion Lozier Institute) at Frontiers invited 3 people also from Lozier (lozierinstitute.org/our-team/) to peer review the paper. The affiliations of the reviewers published on the journal website did not make clear that they were each affiliated with Lozier – this had to be deduced by looking up their names individually.
In the scientific publishing world, this situation – 4 of 5 people handling a paper being affiliated with a single (and ideologically self-identified) organization, apparently without being clearly disclosed as such – is highly unusual at best, and editorial mismanagement at worst. Thus, concerns were raised to the journal about the process.
However, the retraction notice states: “Frontiers conducted a post-publication assessment of the article, including consulting with independent expertise, which concluded that the article does not meet the standards of publication of Frontiers in Psychology.” This suggests that after the unusual editorial process was flagged to the journal, it prompted the journal to take a deeper look at the *content* of the article and that its quality was found to be sub-par according to the standards of the journal. This also seems supported by the published rebuttal to Coleman’s paper, here: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1003116/full – which points out many of the flaws in Coleman’s article.
This is important context that several commenters above have ignored or chosen not to address.
Two of the four reviewers of Coleman’s paper are shown on the Frontiers website to have affiliations with anti-abortion rights organizations. Two are not. One of them is identified on the Lozier Institute website as being “chair of the American College of Pediatricians pro-life committee”, while the other has a history of anti-abortion rights activism, including serving as an “expert witness” and being castigated for exaggerating abortion complication rates.
https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/southunionstreet/2014/11/06/federal-judge-slams-alabamas-abortion-experts/18621603/
Does Frontiers think that “peer review” means “review only by people who share the views of the author”?
Rather, I would blame that on Retraction Watch’s article. It only says the reviewer’s are all “pro-life,” not that they literally work at the same place. That is an important distinction.
Spot on!
Yes, that is correct.
Here is a 2014 publication describing the recruiting process for the Turnaway Study: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.whi.2013.10.004
The retracted article just was confused about the recruiting process, and made false allegations. The retraction was based on factual errors. The retraction was not about morality, nor about the affiliations or beliefs of anyone involved.
Calling one side “ideologically self-identified” and ignoring the “ideology” of the other authors and reviewers is a familiar tactic. It takes 39 seconds to check the Twitter feeds and public resumes of the reviewers and authors involved in the retraction to see the pro-abortion self-identified ideology. Another 10 seconds finds the funding.
I still do not know why Coleman’s article was retracted. If it was a similar back and forth about benzene rings or Permian Stratigraphy, we would not see it here, there would be no reason to retract.
I do not see the relevance of your comment, Thad. Ideologically self-identified is not a disparaging term (nor a “tactic”). It’s simply descriptive (e.g., of a type of organization that describes its ideological viewpoint on its website – which is different from, say, a University where a wide range of views of affiliated people may co-exist, precluding such a focused description).
I still do not know why Coleman’s article was retracted.
There is always the option of accepting the publisher’s explanation: that it wasn’t good enough and didn’t meet their standards.
That’s why I don’t know: “didn’t meet the standards” is boiler plate and could come from the mouth of any Soviet midlevel. It is not specific. Show me the T’s on the bar graphs at least.
As for my irrelevant comment, most University faculty do not have wide ranging views in the U.S. There are the polls, (especially the one about Democrat vs. Republican affiliation of profs), there are the stories of students self-censoring, and the speakers banned and censored from campuses. If a student with the wrong views co-exists on most college campuses, they keep their head down until graduation, so their grades are not affected. It’s like the censorship we knew was happening on Twitter but denied until Elon dropped the evidence.
Obianuju Ekeocha’s book “Target Africa” exposes the ideology of places like the Population Council.
Induced abortion not only harms women, but the abortion workers as well. To get out, there is a hotline at abortionworker.com 888-570-5501.
That’s why I don’t know: “didn’t meet the standards” is boiler plate and could come from the mouth of any Soviet midlevel. It is not specific. Show me the T’s on the bar graphs at least.
The same question arises any time a journal rejects a ms. as not good enough, without people raising the spectre of Russian commissars.
The publisher’s position is that the original peer-review was rigged (it sounds as if the Editor had selected reviewers on the basis of ideology and pre-stated position, but that must remain speculative). So they set it aside, and a second review cycle was unfavourable.
Thanks for labelling your subsequent comments as “irrelevant”. This saves time.
Thad, the evidence suggests that it is the restricting of abortion, a position supported by many conservatives, that is most harmful to women, https://www.apa.org/monitor/2022/09/news-facts-abortion-mental-health. How do you reconcile this empirical fact with your own position?
” that is most harmful to women”
That include the female babies that are aborted?
Oh, how clever, AlexS. As if you and most other anti-abortion types were equally concerned about those babies once they’re born.
Agree, once they are born, its fend for yourself, and be exposed to everything wrong with the system and world that conservatives would have them in, including no real welfare, health coverage, crazy imprisonment rates etc etc. All care before born, no care after.
At least Smut Clyde alleges it was a “rigged peer review”. It’s rigged when you are a pro-life reviewer, it isn’t rigged when you are a pro-abortion/Pop-Con reviewer.
abortionrisks.org for Guititio for emiprical ramblings that have been happening for 30 years on this topic.
I thought I was pretty clear that “rigged peer review” is the publisher’s position, not mine, but (as the kids say) you do you.
Thad. I went over the site’s link that attempts to criticize the APA report on abortion. Based on what I read there, I did not bother reading anything else on that site as I assume the rest of it is similarly biased in obvious ways. But, thanks for posting it as it can be used to teach students about critical thinking and about how to spot misinformation on the web.
Similar retractions involving the Charlotte Lozier Institute:
———————————
At the request of Sage and the Journal Editor, the following articles have been retracted:
Studnicki J, Harrison DJ, Longbons T, et al. A Longitudinal Cohort Study of Emergency Room Utilization Following Mifepristone Chemical and Surgical Abortions, 1999–2015. Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology. 2021;8. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/23333928211053965
Studnicki J, Longbons T, Harrison DJ, et al. A Post Hoc Exploratory Analysis: Induced Abortion Complications Mistaken for Miscarriage in the Emergency Room are a Risk Factor for Hospitalization. Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology. 2022;9. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/23333928221103107
Studnicki J, Longbons T, Fisher JW, Harrison DJ, Skop I, MacKinnon SJ. Doctors Who Perform Abortions: Their Characteristics and Patterns of Holding and Using Hospital Privileges. Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology. 2019;6. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/2333392819841211
Reader concerns and investigation
A reader contacted the journal with concerns about the 2021 article as to whether presentation of the data in Figures 2 and 3 is misleading, whether there are defects in the selection of the cohort data, and whether the authors’ affiliations with pro-life advocacy organizations, including Charlotte Lozier Institute, present conflicts of interest that the authors should have disclosed as such in the article.
In response to the reader’s concerns about the selection and presentation of data, an independent reviewer with expertise in statistical analyses evaluated the concerns and opined that the article’s presentation of the data in Figures 2 and 3 leads to an inaccurate conclusion and that the composition of the cohort studied has problems that could affect the article’s conclusions.
In response to the reader’s concerns about conflicts of interest, Sage confirmed that all but one of the article’s authors had an affiliation with one or more of Charlotte Lozier Institute, Elliot Institute, and American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, all pro-life advocacy organizations, despite having declared they had no conflicts of interest when they submitted the article for publication or in the article itself. As a result of Sage’s inquiry into the authors’ conflicts of interest, Sage became aware that a peer reviewer who evaluated the article for initial publication also was affiliated with Charlotte Lozier Institute at the time of the review. In accordance with the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE) standards, Sage and the Journal Editor determined the peer review for initial publication was unreliable. This reviewer also peer reviewed two other articles by the same lead author, published in the journal in 2022 and 2019, which also are the subject of this notice.
Post-publication peer review
Two subject matter experts undertook an independent post-publication peer review of the three articles anew. In the 2021 and 2022 articles, which rely on the same dataset, both experts identified fundamental problems with the study design and methodology, unjustified or incorrect factual assumptions, material errors in the authors’ analysis of the data, and misleading presentations of the data that, in their opinions, demonstrate a lack of scientific rigor and invalidate the authors’ conclusions in whole or in part. In the 2019 article, which relies on a different dataset, both experts identified unsupported assumptions and misleading presentations of the findings that, in their opinions, demonstrate a lack of scientific rigor and render the authors’ conclusion unreliable.
Retraction decision
Based on the results of the investigation, the post-publication peer reviews, and COPE standards, Sage and the Journal Editor retracted these articles.
Ideology has corrupted both sides. One side talks about “soul” and religion. The other talks about wokeism and feminism. Both consider their side “moral”. IMO
1. It is not only the body of the woman. It is 2 completely separate life forms. So “the woman’s right over her body” is totally irrelevant in abortion, because it is not only her body.
2. But at the same time, the second body feels nothing. So yes abortion would kill a life form, but a mindless vegetative plant. It doesn’t harm anyone or anything (including any “soul”).
3. Abortion is seriously necessary. The necessity for abortion has nothing to do with Marxist ideologies like feminism or wokeism.
4. Abortion is a necessity for real and serious reasons, including controlling diseases and syndromes, controlling the overgrowth of population, providing more resources to people, taking care of the dying planet, all by allowing stupid parents to undo the damage they have done (i.e., conceiving a poor human being), by killing “it” when that human being is “it” ie, nothing but a vegetative plant.
5. Not only abortion is necessary, but also rules should be placed to limit the maximum number of children in each family or each person.
6. Any religious argument against abortion that uses the concept of soul for any reason is just irrelevant.
Bottom line:
Abortion should be free and even encouraged very seriously. Even more than that, it should become a must for people who have a number of kids, for example 2 kids max.