New England Journal of Medicine "fails to show significant harm from Texas’s defunding of Planned Parenthood"
It is disappointing to see the New England Journal of Medicine once again use its prestige and influence in such a partisan manner. The release of this study was doubtless timed to coincide with oral arguments in Zubik v. Burwell on the Department of Health and Human Services contraception mandate. Unfortunately, this has become standard operating procedure for the New England Journal of Medicine. During the debate over the Affordable Care Act in 2010, it published a very superficial analysis of abortion trends in Massachusetts to make the case that wider health-care coverage could reduce the abortion rate. In reality, abortion numbers in Massachusetts had been falling for a long time, as they are virtually everywhere, and the enactment of Commonwealth Care in 2006 had little impact on the trend.Read the rest of the National Review piece. Read how the mainstream media spun even this to make it seem like they and the abortion industry were correct, when in fact, they're not quite, after all.Overall good public-health data from Texas indicates that since Planned Parenthood was defunded, abortions have gone down significantly. Additionally, the overall birth rate has gone down slightly. Most importantly, there is no evidence that the unintended-pregnancy rate has gone up. Sadly, but unsurprisingly, these important statistics have gone largely unreported by the mainstream media.