Ten pro-life researchers have challenged a medical journal’s retraction of their studies analyzing the risks of abortion, arguing that the publication’s actions were politically motivated.
The pro-life research organization Charlotte Lozier Institute announced Monday that their scholars filed an opening arbitration demand on Feb. 21 against Sage Publications, Inc. over the retraction of three articles published in the peer-reviewed journal Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology.
The scientists first filed a petition to compel arbitration in October 2024 in the Superior Court of California with help from attorneys with the Alliance Defending Freedom and Consovoy McCarthy PLLC.
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In a statement provided to The Christian Post, Karen Czarnecki, executive director of the CLI, declared that “Freedom of speech in medicine is critical to scientific progress.”
“The authors are now being mistreated in their industry and their research proposals are being inexplicably turned down,” Czarnecki stated. “That is wrong, and the scientific community deserves better.”
According to the filing, the academic publisher “unjustly retracted” three of the scientists’ studies and removed Dr. James Studnicki, the lead author of the studies who also holds an executive position with CLI, from a Sage editorial board. The three studies were published in 2019, 2020 and 2022.
The scholars have requested injunctive relief requiring Sage to rescind the retractions, which the scientists contend have harmed their professional reputations.
“The combined reputational and economic harm to the Authors from these unlawful actions is enormous and incalculable,” the filing stated.
“Because of Sage’s retractions, the Authors and their research have been attacked by the media, by other authors, and even by a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Authors have had new research proposals inexplicably turned away by other journals that now fear associating with them. The Authors have years — even decades — of fruitful research ahead of them, but they are now being treated as pariahs.”
Sage did not immediately respond to The Christian Post’s request for comment.
One of the retracted studies, published in November 2021, found the rate of emergency room visits after chemical abortions increased by over 500% from 2002 through 2015. Another study published in May 2022 analyzed the risks of emergency room doctors miscoding an abortion complication as a miscarriage, either due to patient concealment or staff mischaracterization.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Donald Trump appointee, cited these two studies in an April 2023 decision to suspend the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion drug mifepristone.
CLI contends that the court decision prompted a reader to complain about the “authors’ pro-life affiliations.”
Sage would retract the articles in February 2024, the month before the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments for a case focused on restrictions for abortion drugs. As the scholars noted in their filing, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson brought up the retractions during oral argument, claiming that lower courts had relied on studies that had been “discredited and removed.”
Defending the retractions, Sage alleged that the study authors did not disclose their ties to pro-life organizations, such as the CLI, the research and education arm of a leading pro-life grassroots campaign group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.
Sage also claimed that experts who conducted an independent post-publication peer review of the three studies found “unjustified or incorrect factual assumptions,” a claim that the scholars have denied.
One of the studies’ authors, Tessa Longbons, a senior research associate at CLI, told CP she and her colleagues addressed the concerns the publication brought to their attention. She said they “fully disclosed who we were affiliated with” and never concealed their pro-life ties.
Studnicki, vice president and director of data analytics at the CLI, asserted that Sage did not have a legitimate reason for retracting the studies.
“Putting politics over publication ethics, Sage retracted three important studies by Charlotte Lozier Institute scholars that are scientifically sound,” Studnicki said in a statement provided to CP.
“Good science is open science, and it does not follow a pre-approved narrative. Our scientific institutions must defend principles of open inquiry and commitment to science, not just when it’s convenient for them,” he continued.
“Sage’s actions should be of great concern to the entire research community. We remain committed to that pursuit regardless of all attempts to silence and ban our studies and our network of scholars.”
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: samantha.kamman@christianpost.com. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
