According to the academic journal JAMA Internal Medicine, approximately 519,000 rapes have occurred in red states where abortion is strongly outlawed after the Dobbs ruling. Of that number, which is already dubious, the Journal says more than 64,000 children were conceived during that violent act.
Dr. Michael New, a senior scholar with the Charlotte Lozier Institute, reviewed those numbers that come from the Centers for Disease Control. Because of the way the figures were twisted, he came away frustrated mostly at media outlets that ran with them anyway.
“I looked at these figures,” he tells AFN, “and to call them an exaggeration would be an understatement.”
Yet he says the study was quickly published on liberal news outlets such as CNN, NBC News, Axios, and the Huffington Post.
New calls the journal’s research article “advocacy research” because the goal is to criticize pro-life states with strong abortion laws.
“What the media isn't covering is that one of the co-authors is the medical director for Planned Parenthood in Montana,” he advises. “Another co-author works for a research advocacy group that supports legal abortion.”
The official with Planned Parenthood is Samuel Dickman. The advocacy group is Resound Research for Reproductive Health.
“At the very least they need to seek out people with dissenting points of view,” New says of the media. “They shouldn't publish this study, or any study, as gospel truth.”
