Right-wing media and anti-abortion groups are using a 'seriously flawed' study on medication abortion to claim it’s not safe
A recent study released by the conservative think tank Ethics and Public Policy Center claimed that “one in ten” patients using the mifepristone abortion pill experiences a “serious adverse event.” Doctors and women’s health care experts criticized the report, arguing that the study is based on faulty methodology and is “highly questionable.”
Despite criticism from the medical and health care field, anti-abortion groups and right-wing media have glommed onto the study’s findings to back up their claim that medication abortion is “poison” and “dangerous,” insisting that the Food and Drug Administration should “revoke” approval for or “investigate” the mifepristone abortion pill.
Related Knowledge Center: Fact-checking and its detractors
Fact-checking has become a familiar tool for political reporters to hold office-holders and candidates accountable. But critics ask if fact-checkers sometimes miss the forest for the trees, and if the practice often struggles with false equivalency the way conventional political coverage does.