Texas Abortion Restrictions: Experts Lied About Research and Vincent Rue.
In an unusual turn of events at the Texas trial now under appeal, the state was caught red-handed: Four of the state’s five expert witnesses were forced to change their testimony on the stand when confronted with emails showing they had lied about who had written their reports.
Just how extensive and improper Rue’s contributions had been wasn’t known until a 2:30 a.m. document dump during the trial. That’s when the state’s lawyers finally turned over to the clinics’ attorneys emails they had withheld, despite a court order requiring them to turn over all the witnesses’ communications with Rue. The emails show that Rue sent drafts of rebuttals to expert reports to the purported rebuttal authors before the authors had ever seen the reports they were meant to be rebutting. Deborah Kitz, a witness testifying as an expert in the management of medical facilities, claimed under oath that no one else had contributed to the writing of her rebuttal. But she wrote to Rue, “I see ‘my’ report that you returned to me yesterday references my review of a report from a Dr. Layne-Farrar. I’ve never seen that report.” Similarly, Mayra Thompson, an OB-GYN, failed to review the sources she purported to rebut. Thompson admitted that she was unfamiliar with eight of the nine studies relied upon by the expert she claimed to critique, and she could not identify a single published study to support the opinions expressed in her own report.
There’s more. Sociologist Peter Uhlenberg, the author of a book claiming that scientific material must be tested against the Bible and “some findings must be rejected as contrary to a Christian understanding of reality,” denied ever discussing his opinions with Rue. Yet emails show him asking Rue what he should do about contradictory evidence. Rue helpfully suggested leaving the most recent data out of Uhlenberg’s report.
More: Texas Abortion Restrictions: Experts Lied About Research and Vincent Rue.