What Media Should Know About The Discredited Psychotherapist Working To Close Down Abortion Clinics

[Triana]

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In May, doctors in Wisconsin and Alabama went to federal court to challenge unnecessarily restrictive laws introduced in both states that require abortion providers to obtain unusual hospital admitting privileges -- a mandate that could force some of the state's clinics to close because the doctors there lack those privileges at local hospitals. These kinds of laws -- known as Targeted Regulations of Abortion Providers, or TRAP laws -- have become increasingly common throughout the country as a way to block access to abortions under the guise of women's health. Admitting privileges are not only extremely difficult to obtain and maintain, many medical professionals believe they are unnecessary for these types of clinics because abortions are generally safe, safer than other medical procedures that don't require such privileges, and patients rarely need to be admitted to the hospital due to complications.

Providers in the Wisconsin case -- Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin v. Van Hollen -- have argued that if the law stands, they would be forced to close down essential clinics throughout the state, placing a significant burden on the remaining providers, and putting women's health and safety at greater risk. Planned Parenthood has argued that such closures could increase wait times from three to four weeks to eight to ten weeks at its Milwaukee clinic. In Planned Parenthood Southeast v. Strange, doctors are challenging a similar law in Alabama, arguing that abortion clinics there are also at risk of shutting down due to the stringent, and unnecessary, admitting privileges requirement.

However, state officials in Wisconsin and Alabama are still defending these laws in court, claiming that admitting privileges are necessary to promote the health and safety of women. To prove this point, each states' attorneys general have called on "expert witnesses" -- specifically pro-life doctors -- who have testified in support of admitting privileges. But only two local outlets appear to have reported the connection between these "expert witnesses" and Vincent Rue, an unreliable psychotherapist who "coined the term 'post-abortion syndrome,' which purports a link between abortion and mental health issues," who has been behind the coordination and coaching effort of these witnesses in multiple states.

In a 2000 interview with the Elliot Institute -- an anti-reproductive choice organization that has been criticized for "building a literature to be used in efforts to restrict access to abortion," Rue supported his study on "post-abortion syndrome" by saying: "Since ambivalence is a good predictor of postabortion problems, it is likely that many of these women are having post-abortion symptoms that simply fall short of full-blown PAS."

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As interesting as the article, is this comment by Phoenixdoglover:

All roads in this story lead to Vincent Rue. So I decided to find out more.

The good news first:
1) Vincent Rue has a PhD.

Now the bad news:
1) Vincent runs an "Institute" whose sole purpose is to argue against abortion on the basis of psychological harm
2) His wife is the only other person that seems to be associated with the "Institute"
3) The "Institute is a private residence in a nice neighborhood in Jacksonville, Florida.
4) The "Institute" has no web site, and there appears to be nothing to it except a name.
5) Mr. Rue wrote a research paper in 2004, and got it published in a Polish medical journal (I'm not kidding).
6) One of his researchers was also named Rue; probably his father or his uncle.
7) Mr. Rue made up a questionnaire, gave it a fancy name, and had it administered to a bunch of American and Russian women who said they had received an abortion some years before the study. The study does not provide a copy of the questionnaire, and there is no indication it was ever validated by anyone else.
8) There was no comparison with a control group; nor any longitudinal tracking. So the results must be considered poorly grounded.
8) On the basis of this shoddy work, Mr. Rue concluded that women who have had abortions display all kinds of bad psychological stress indicators.
9) For the past 10 years, he's been riding this pony.
10) In 2008, Mr. Rue and few others attended a meeting hosted by the Family Research Council in which they made a lot of claims and complained about how the American Psychological Association (APA) did not agree with their desire to have post-abortion stress given official recognition. Well, I suppose this is actually good news.
11) Mr. Rue has parlayed this stinking pile of pseudo-science into some nice expert witness coaching fees. Some people will pay for anything.

THE REST:

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/06/06/what-media-should-know-about-the-discredited-ps/199631

Rue sounds like a certified member of the American Taliban to me. These extremists will fabricate any excuse they can to facilitate control over women and force the relegation of women to sexual and reproductive slavery.