Abortion is one of the most polarizing social issues of our time. It has become a “war” between those who support abortion rights (the pro-choice movement) and those who oppose abortion rights (the pro-life movement). Each movement has different ideas about the status of the fetus, the authority of religious doctrine, and the role of women in society. Both sides have increasingly relied on scientific claims as objective and neutral to make their case about a woman’s right to abortion.1

Scientific claims-making used by social movements is an example of "scientism." Scientism is the overextension of scientific authority. Jason Blakely, an associate professor of political science at Pepperdine University, argues that science is used to the best advantage when it informs and educates us rather than being used to determine public policy.2 Policies that rely on science are subject to all kinds of social-scientific distortions, often based on ideology and politics. What is essentially scientific description is presented as justification for the way people ought to think and behave. Not only does scientific claims-making distort the social and political issues at stake, it also ultimately undermines the credibility of actual scientific authority.

It is instructive to review how we got from the time prior to the mid-1800’s, when abortion was a common and unregulated practice, to the current day, when the issue has shifted to a “wobbly” empirical scientific and social debate.3

Prior to the mid-1800’s, abortion was a common and unregulated practice. In the attempt to enhance their profession, physicians at the time sought to gain control over medical knowledge, giving them a privileged status over existing care providers. Significantly, this professionalization project was waged against midwives, who were the........

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