With their preferred candidate having lost the presidential election, pro-abortionists are angrier and more eager to censor than ever. If we are not alert and on guard, groups such as National Right to Life will be inundated by a wave of attempts to still our voices.
This insistence on one-sidedness takes many forms. A common tactic is to simply announce that pro-abortionists are right, right, right, so let’s just ignore pro-life evidence which is by definition wrong, wrong, and wrong.
That begins with likening pro-lifers to those who question gravity (when we aren’t flat-out lying). Which is why Amanda Marcotte’s “Five Ways to Ensure Scientifically Accurate Reporting on Reproductive Rights” is so worth considering.
It is dreadful. You have to ask yourself, does anyone actually read these posts for content, consistency, and (at least a passing nod at) coherence before they are posted?
Point of clarification, needed even if obvious. National Right to Life, of course, has nothing to say about the back and forth over climate change, specifically the role of human activity. But to the Marcottes of this world, just as there is only one legitimate point of view on “climate change theory,” so, too, the voice of anyone who does not unthinkingly, reflexively, unhesitantly accept pro-abort “facts” on “reproductive rights” must be excluded from the debate.
Marcotte used a report from the agency that regulates the British BBC to set the stage. When talking about the BBC’s overall coverage of science, the BBC Trust recently said, we’re told, that there was still an “‘over-rigid application of editorial guidelines on impartiality’ which sought to give the ‘other side’ of the argument, even if that viewpoint was widely dismissed.”
You get the picture: it makes no sense to be “impartial” in covering abortion because all the evidence/facts/good sense is the side of the pro-abortionists.
So, Marcotte offers five “simple fixes to media coverage of reproductive rights that would do wonders for improving audience understanding of the issue.” You can read her at the pro-abortion site Rewire News, so let me make address just two “fixes” before turning to what she chooses to avoid.
#1. We understand there is a “difference between a zygote, an embryo, and a fetus.” Where we disagree is that we believe this says nothing relevant about whether you should take a baby’s life at six weeks, eight weeks (the end of the period when the baby is designated an “embryo?), 11 weeks, or 39 weeks.
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As Paul Stark has written, “The unborn is a distinct, living and whole human organism—a full-fledged member of the species Homo sapiens, like you and me, only at a much earlier stage in her development. She is a human being.”
Marcotte not so subtly argues that since the baby earlier in pregnancy is smaller and less developed, the child lacks moral weight. (Not, by the way, that he or she attains significance later in pregnancy. It’s just a debating point.)
The irony is later in her piece Marcotte says that “one side” (that would be us) “put[s] their thumb on the scale by lying.” Even a cursory look at Marcotte’s piece shows there are lots of ways of…not telling the full truth.
#2. “Abortion is very common.” So is spousal abuse, horrible treatment of [born] children, and (increasingly) elderly abuse. If abortions were very much less common—fervently to be wished—would Marcotte suddenly drop her very common=okay argument? Of course not.
What gets omitted? Any and all pro-life observations, such as that pro-abortionists have moved from abortion as “safe, legal and rare” to abortion for any reason or no reason, at any time in pregnancy…and (to more and more anti-lifers) after birth? Any pretense at “moderation” is old news.
Or that the contagion has spread to babies born with disabilities (or diagnosed prenatally as imperfect) and the elderly. These horrific developments have come together in doctor-assisted suicide for children!
And, for the Marcottes, who could possibly believe that women suffer from a slew of post-abortion complications? Well, consider “Complications: Abortion’s Impact on Women: The Medical and Psychological Evidence” which we reviewed a while back. It’s a book built on more than 650 papers, books, and official documents that examined abortion world-wide.
I’d like to recall two of our conclusions:
“One of Dr. Angela Lanfranchi’s chapters, ‘Biology and epidemiology confirm the abortion-breast cancer link,’ is an exquisite explanation why there MUST be an increase in a woman’s risk of having breast cancer if she has an induced abortion. Equally well, she debunks the customary naysayers, including the National Cancer Institute.”
And
“The book extensively examines the evidence that abortion has considerable psychological Implications for women, which pro-abortionists and their enablers adamantly deny. The authors write that they ‘provide solid documentation, from several counters that challenge the statement of the American Psychological Association that induced abortion has no adverse psychological effects upon women.’”
So to Marcotte, “impartial” reporting would ignore this (because it is the work of “junk scientists”) and the abundance of scientific evidence that the unborn child can experience pain by 20 weeks (more “junk science”). Reporters would/should also conveniently ignore the NARAL-inspired onslaught against women-helping centers (which judges routinely reject) and the obvious fact that younger people are increasingly pro-life.
Then there is her conclusion.
“More importantly, as the media is supposed to be there to help ordinary citizens understand the issues and how they affect them, having a clear picture of what is at stake in these debates over reproductive health care is critical.”
I couldn’t agree more. The dominant America media, so long in the hip-pocket of pro-abortionists, is doubtless susceptible to this nonsense, indeed eager co-conspirators.
It is very unlikely that they would ever provide truly impartial reporting. Instead they will (as they have) follow the lead of the real “deniers”: the Abortion Establishment.
LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. This post originally appeared in at National Right to Life News Today —- an online column on pro-life issues.
