Nationality American Name Vincent Rue | Spouse Susan Stanford-Rue Fields Psychology, Psychotherapy | |
Thesis An examination of selected attitudes and opinions of federal-level bureaucrats on the development of national family policy and programming (1975) Known for Advocating for a link between abortion and mental health problems Alma mater University of North Carolina at Greensboro | ||
Vincent Montgomery Rue is an American psychotherapist and pro-life advocate, as well as the founder and co-director (along with his wife, Susan Stanford-Rue, who is also a psychotherapist) of the now-inactive "Institute for Pregnancy Loss". He has claimed to have treated many women who have had what he says are "painful" abortion experiences, and who have wished that they had received more information before they had their abortion.
Contents
Abortion and mental health
He is known for being one of the first to propose a link between abortion and mental health problems, which he dubbed "post-abortion syndrome" when testifying before Congress in the early 1980s. However, "post-abortion syndrome" is not recognized by as a real condition by either the American Psychological Association or the American Psychiatric Association. In 1987, Rue presented a then-unpublished paper—entitled "The Psychological Aftermath of Abortion: A White Paper"—to the then-surgeon general, C. Everett Koop, who rejected it. In the paper, the authors argued that abortion increased the risk of mental-health problems, but nevertheless acknowledged that "the psychological risks of abortion are based mainly upon studies which have used small, uncontrolled and non-representative samples" and which therefore "cannot be predictive of national estimates". Since the 1980s, Rue has, along with fellow pro-life activists Priscilla K. Coleman and David Reardon, published a number of studies claiming to find that abortion increases women's risk of mental health problems, such as major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder, though critics have argued that these studies are "essentially meaningless" because they only establish correlation, which does not necessarily prove a causal relationship. In addition, critics have stated that a study published by Rue et al. in the Journal of Psychiatric Research in 2009 included all mental health problems with which women were diagnosed over their entire lifetimes, thus negating their argument that these disorders were shown to have been caused by women having abortions.
Criticism
In 1992, Rue's testimony in the Planned Parenthood v. Casey case was thrown out by a district judge, who concluded that it was "not credible." In 2014, Rue was criticized for his involvement in recruiting witnesses for anti-abortion legislation by Alabama judge Myron Herbert Thompson.