David Reardon - Media Coverage

Media Coverage

In a Washington Monthly article titled "Research and Destroy", author Chris Mooney profiled Reardon as an example of what he describes as "Christian conservatives have gone a long way towards creating their own scientific counter-establishment." He also notes that Reardon's findings conflict with those of the American Psychological Association, which in 1990 had rejected "the notion that abortion regularly causes severe or clinical mental problems", and with the conclusions of former United States Surgeon General C. Everett Koop.

In a front-page story for the New York Times Magazine, Slate editor Emily Bazelon described the growth of post-abortion counseling ministries around the United States as part of an effort by the pro-life movement to outlaw abortion by stressing its purported psychological effects. She describes Reardon as arguing that the pro-life movement will "never win over a majority... by asserting the sanctity of fetal life", and therefore should focus on disseminating information that abortion is psychologically harmful to women as a more effective strategy.

Bazelon goes on to say:

For anti-abortion activists, this strategy offers distinct advantages. It challenges the connection between access to abortion and women's rights — if women are suffering because of their abortions, then how could making the procedure readily available leave women better off? It replaces mute pictures of dead fetuses with the voices of women who narrate their stories in raw detail and who claim they can move legislators to tears. And it trades condemnation for pity and forgiveness. "Pro-lifers who say, 'I don't understand how anyone could have an abortion,' are blind to how hurtful this statement can be," Reardon writes on his Web site. "A more humble pro-life attitude would be to say, 'Who am I to throw stones at others?' When researchers attack his findings, Reardon writes to the journals' letters pages. "Even if pro-abortionists got five paragraphs explaining that abortion is safe and we got only one line saying it's dangerous, the seed of doubt is planted," he wrote in his book.

Reardon has been described in the Boston Globe as someone who "wants Congress to impose strict barriers to abortion." The Boston Globe also wrote:

This dual role of advocate/researcher is becoming more common, especially as advocacy groups realize they can sway more opinions by asserting that their research is based on science, rather than simply on personal belief. Reardon, like many people who play this dual role, insists he can objectively look at the data without being influenced by his personal viewpoint.

According to the website of the Elliot Institute, which Reardon founded, he is "a frequent guest on Christian radio and Christian television talk shows and has been a frequently invited speaker state and national conventions for crisis pregnancy centers and pro-life organizations." Reardon addressed the National Pro-Life Religious Council in 1998, where he discussed emotional reactions to abortion in the context of the disputed entity of "post-abortion syndrome".