GOP Governors Paying Big Bucks to Controversial Marriage Therapist to Defend New Abortion Laws
Over the past two years, at least four Republican-controlled states have paid nearly $200,000 in taxpayers funds to Vincent Rue—a marriage therapist whose testimony has been repeatedly disregarded by judges—to help defend ultra-strict abortion laws in court.
Rue, who holds a doctorate in family relations from the University of North Carolina School of Home Economics, has claimed that “abortion reescalates the battle between the sexes” and “abortion increases bitterness toward men.” For decades, he has strived to convince mainstream researchers to recognize “post-abortion syndrome,” a supposed mental illness resulting from abortion.
But “after submission for peer review by scientists with the Center for Disease Control, the National Center for Health Statistics and other scientific institutions, [Rue’s] study was found to have ‘no value’ and to be ‘based upon a priori beliefs rather than an objective review of the evidence,’” according to Daniel Huyett, a federal judge who disregarded Rue’s testimony in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a landmark 1990 abortion case that eventually ended up before the Supreme Court. “His testimony is devoid of…analytical force and scientific rigor,” Huyett added. “Moreover, his admitted personal opposition to abortion, even in cases of rape and incest, suggests a possible personal bias.” Rue “possesses neither the academic qualifications nor the professional experience of plaintiffs’ expert witnesses,” another federal judge wrote in 1986 after hearing Rue’s testimony in another landmark abortion case, Hodgson v. Minnesota.
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