By David Hunter

While I am wary on this blog talking about what we commonly refer to as “The paper that shall not be named” for fear of inciting yet more criticism, complaint and work for myself and Iain there is a certain amount of schadenfreude to be had at the impact three years on of the controversy that ignited on the blog regarding that paper about post-birth abortion.

Google Scholar has recently published its 2014 ranking of top journals and in the subcategory of bioethics the Journal of Medical Ethics is tops and at least one person (you know who you are…) has suggested this is because of the post-birth abortion paper.

The impact factor of the Journal of Medical Ethics is 1.4 which implies the average number of citations a paper in the JME is 1.4. The post birth abortion paper has received an astonishing 74 citations thus far. And while I am sure it would have received some citations organically I am also sure that the vast majority of those citations would not have happened without the controversy. This is the academic equivalent of the Streisand effect (the effect whereby trying to hide something makes it much much more well known and readily available).

At the very least there is a lesson here for those who want to shut down particular areas of academic debate, giving these issues oxygen and attention makes them more rather than less likely to succeed. I’m hoping that anyone bothered by this post takes that lesson on board…