Editors of Facebook’s fact checker website may have invited abortionists to target Live Action

Editors of the website HealthFeedback.org may have been the initiators of the recent “fact check” of Live Action by Facebook. The editors of Health Feedback invited two abortionists to write a response to Live Action founder and president Lila Rose’s statement that “abortion is never medically necessary.” The abortionists unsurprisingly ruled Rose’s statement “inaccurate,” which led to Facebook’s decision to reduce the distribution of links to LiveAction.org as well as content shared on Rose’s Facebook page. As Live Action News previously documented, the “fact check,” written with feedback from abortionists Robyn Schickler and Daniel Grossman, came weeks after Rose published a video of a speech she gave to the Young America’s Foundation to her Facebook page.

Health Feedback is part of the Science Feedback non-profit registered in France and founded by Emmanuel Vincent. The site claims to challenge “the credibility of influential claims and media coverage” of climate and health, and claims its goal to “help create an Internet where users will have access to scientifically sound and trustworthy information.” However, the Science Feedback website includes Rose’s statement that abortion is never medically necessary as “inaccurate” despite the fact that over a thousand doctors agree with Rose.

Vincent is listed as a Research Scientist at the University of California’s Center for Climate Communication, UC Merced. Live Action News has documented the close ties between the University of California and abortion philanthropists here. In fact, the Packard Foundation, an original investor in the abortion pill manufacturer, Danco Laboratories, is a substantial donor to UC Merced.

Health Feedback Contributor Requirements:

To become a Health Feedback contributor, the group’s website tells applicants that they must:

• have a PhD in a relevant discipline,
• have at least one published article in a peer-reviewed scientific journal within the last three years in the field of health science or medicine.

But in looking at prominent online profiles of the “fact-checker” abortionists Schickler and Grossman, it was unclear to Live Action News whether either met those standards.

Health Feedback Process

If the Health Feedback process as explained on its website was followed, it seems to indicate that Live Action was targeted by Health Feedback editors, who then invited two abortionists to publish the so-called “fact check.” It does not appear that any OB/GYNs from abortion neutral groups were invited to balance the abortionists’ claims, including those from the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists (AAPLOG).

Health Feedback’s editors seem to have targeted a pro-life statement and then assigned abortionists as the “experts” to fact check the statement. The problem here is the conflict of interest; abortionists are trying to protect their industry and their livelihood — the way they make money.

Health Feedback Editor

Health Feedback’s editor in this case was Flora Teo. According to her LinkedIn page, Two has a scientific background in “microbiology and immunology,” not obstetrics and gynecology. But there is an interesting tidbit in her past work experience with the Singapore research company A*Star, where she was a “postdoctoral fellow in the Humanised Mouse Unit at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology.” 

Why is this important and why could this point to a conflict of interest? According to one study published in the Journal of Virology, aborted fetal tissue is being used for A*Star research.

The study states in part, “… mice were purchased from The Jackson Laboratory and bred under specific-pathogen-free conditions at the Biological Resource Centre (BRC) at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore….” Under materials, it states, “Human fetal livers were obtained from aborted fetuses at 15 to 23 weeks of gestation in strict accordance with the institutional ethical guidelines of KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Singapore, with written consent from the donors.”

In reality, the humans who donated these organs could never have given written consent, because they were killed to obtain them.

Another Pro-life Health Feedback Fact Check uses Abortionists

Live Action was not the first pro-life site to be fact-checked by abortionists at Health Feedback. In July, the same editor, Teo, assigned two other abortionists to fact check LifeSiteNews, another pro-life news website. In that case, abortionist fact-checker, Aaron Lazorwitz, was described by Health Feedback as the “Assistant Professor (Obstetrics & Gynecology), School of Medicine, University of Colorado Denver.” But according to the website AbortionDocs.org, he commits abortions.

The site’s second “fact-checker,” Philip D. Darney, was described as a “Professor, Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health.” As Live Action News previously documented, Bixby trains abortionists and was originally founded as the Center for Reproductive Health Research & Policy in 1999 by Philip Darney, MD, and others. The Center offers online abortion training courses and lectures through its Innovating Education in Reproductive Health. In addition, as previously reported, Darney “has served on the boards of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood’s former research arm,” after being inspired by the debunked population theory “The Population Bomb” published by Paul Ehrlich.

Updated Data

Health Feedback published its “fact check” of Live Action and Rose on August 30, 2019, which coincidentally (or not so coincidentally) was the very same day Facebook made its decision to “reduce distribution” of Live Action’s pages. Then, after Live Action responded with evidence that the claim is supported by AAPLOG, Health Feedback updated its “fact check” with a “clarification” from the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG).

But there are serious conflicts and problems with using ACOG as an unbiased source. Why?

• ACOG is a radically pro-abortion organization.
• ACOG funds the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) which trains abortionists and employs Grossman.
• ACOG has been funded by Ibis Reproductive Health, an organization where Grossman is also on staff. According to the Ibis website, the organization receives direct funding from abortion pill manufacturer Danco Laboratories.
• ACOG is funded by the Buffett Foundation (2016) which invested in the abortion pill manufacturer.

Health Feedback (Science Feedback) Safeguards

Despite these conflicts,  coupled with editorial invitations to known abortionists with ties to big abortion, Science Feedback claims they safeguard their credibility by requiring contributors “to have appropriate credentials in a relevant scientific area and to demonstrate high-level ethical standards in their scientific and public practice.” The same “Community Standards” page makes clear that the weight of different points of view or other interpretations are to be given.

Health Feedback abortionists did neither of these, and as Live Action News previously made clear, “Live Action… has made this claim with the support and backing of over a thousand medical professionals, who signed the Dublin Declaration.” In addition, Live Action News pointed out that “2,500 OB/GYNS of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists affirm that direct abortion – the purposeful destruction of the preborn child – is not medically necessary to save the life of a woman.”

While the fact check listed seven “references,” not one of those was noted as a direct rebuttal related to Rose’s specific claim that abortion is never medically necessary. Instead, the footnotes were linked to general claims of abortion safety.

Live Action News previously reviewed three well-known abortion philanthropists funding many of the studies listed above, and summarized as follows:

• The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation gives millions of dollars to abortion groups like NARAL, Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation. They fund Gynuity Health Projects, UCSF, and the Guttmacher Institute. A stated goal of Hewlett has been “to expand access to abortion.”

• The David and Lucile Packard Foundation‘s previous website made clear its goal is “expanding access to safe abortion.” Packard’s current website says it exists to “ensure that women receive quality abortion care by supporting advocacy in targeted states and addressing the clinic and provider shortage.” The Foundation is a substantial donor to Planned Parenthood, the National Abortion Federation and NARAL, and an original investor in the abortion pill manufacturer DANCO.

Science Feedback states that a scientist can undermine their own credibility by “not disclosing important conflicts of interest.” Yet, Live Action News has documented several ways these abortionist fact-checkers failed to disclose such conflicts (here), namely that Grossman and Schickler are associated with organizations either directly funded by abortion pill manufacturer Danco Laboratories or by Danco’s investors.

The abortion industry continues to falsely sell abortion, the intentional targeting of the preborn child in the womb, as health care. To legitimize abortion, which includes the violent chemical poisoning or dismembering of the second of two patients (the preborn baby) during a pregnancy, abortion advocates rely upon websites like Health Feedback and others who refuse to show the American public exactly what abortion is. As long as Health Feedback refuses to publish a view in disagreement with those who support abortion on demand, they can never be considered credible nor taken seriously as a legitimate scientific resource.

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