PSEUDOSCIENCE?

Scientist Accuses U.S. Anti-Abortion Lawyers of Inaccurately Citing His Work

“It distresses me that my work was misinterpreted and became one of the pillar arguments they [the lawyers] made.”

A scientist in London is blasting U.S. anti-abortion lawyers with accusations of inaccurately citing and misrepresenting his research on the brain in order to justify a potential strike-down of Roe v. Wade. Giandomenico Iannetti, a scientist at University College London, has used imaging to study the adult brain’s response to pain. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case challenging Mississippi’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks that is expected to gut Roe, anti-abortion lawyers’ argument that scientific understanding of abortion has changed relied on a paper on fetal pain. That paper, in turn, claims that Iannetti’s research could imply humans don’t need a cerebral cortex to feel pain. Cerebral cortexes are undeveloped in fetuses younger than 24 weeks. Iannetti has called this conclusion as “an unjustified leap,” adding, “It distresses me that my work was misinterpreted and became one of the pillar arguments they [the lawyers] made.”