RTE’s Morning Ireland programme this morning issued a clarification [1] accepting that a prominent New Zealand 
psychiatrist was not unhappy about how his research was cited by The Iona Institute.
On Tuesday, presenter Cathal McCoille interviewed Professor David Fergusson about the way in which his research had been cited by pro life groups.
Dr Fergusson’s research indicates there is no mental health benefit to women who have abortions.
Mr McCoille put two quotes from the Iona Institute’s website concerning his research to him. Professor Fergusson expressed neither disagreement nor unhappiness with how the Institute quoted his research.
However later in the same programme when he interviewed Professor Patricia Casey he twice claimed that Professor Fergusson was unhappy with how the Iona Institute had presented his research.
But after being contacted by the Institute, Morning Ireland today acknowledged that Professor Fergusson had not expressed unhappiness.
Their clarification, in full, reads:
“On Tuesday, May 7th, we broadcast interviews with Professor David Fergusson of the University of Otago at Christchurch, New Zealand and with Professor Patricia Casey, Consultant Psychiatrist at UCD and the Mater.
“The subject was the reported unhappiness by Professor Fergusson at the way his research was being interpreted by pro-life parties to the abortion debate here.
“In the course of the interview with Professor Casey, I said that Professor Fergusson had said he was unhappy at the way the Iona Institute had been citing his research.
“In fact, Professor Fergusson did not say he was unhappy with how the Iona Institute quoted his research and we’re happy to clarify that.”
The relevant exchange in respect of the Iona Institute between the two men was as follows:
Cathal MacCoille: Some of the references to your work by a group known as the Iona Institute, which opposes abortion legislation in Ireland as it is currently proposed. On 17th April this year, your work was referred to under a headline that: “Abortion does not improve mental health of women, says new study” and a couple of days earlier, your work was referred to on the website of the Iona Institute under a headline that said: “Abortion has no mental health benefits, poses more risk for ‘unwanted pregnancies’: study”.
Do those headlines, and I can read more if you like, but that summarises fairly what those statements about your work say, do they fairly or unfairly represent your work?
Professor David Fergusson: We have just completed a review of the evidence and our review was that there was no evidence that abortion mitigated any mental health risks of unwanted pregnancy and that was based upon a review of the very limited research and I think the first point to make is that the research is not particularly good and any conclusion drawn should be made very cautiously. But that was our major conclusion. We could not find any evidence of benefits.
Cathal MacCoille: Just to go on from the statement made on the Iona Institute website on the 15th April. It said: Researchers, this is referring to you and your fellow researchers in the university, Researchers “found that abortion had no therapeutic value in reducing the mental health risks”. “Instead, the evidence suggests,” the Iona Institute goes on, “that abortion may be associated with an increased risk of some mental health problems.” Is some or any of that statement true?
Professor David Fergusson: That statement is true. We found that when we compared women who had an abortion with equivalent groups of women who had unwanted pregnancies or intended pregnancies the women having abortions had slightly higher rates of mental health problems.