Courant’s Abortion Headline Misleads
July 31st, 2007 by Peter
“From Both Sides, A Bid To Change Abortion Debate” reads the top headline of today’s front page. It’s not hard to understand why one side is seeking to change the debate:
And Democrats have been losing the abortion fight, at least at the margins, for some time.
“They sense they’re out of step with the electorate,” said Karlyn Bowman, a polling analyst at the American Enterprise Institute.
While the country has long been divided about abortion – a May Gallup poll found 49 percent for abortion rights and 45 percent opposed – polls also have detected some ambiguity in those positions.
In that same poll, 26 percent said abortion should be “always legal” and 18 percent said it should be “always illegal.” Most of the rest said abortion should be “sometimes legal.” And nearly three in four people said partial-birth or late-term abortions should be outlawed.
The “bid to change” the abortion debate is a Rosa DeLauro-led House vote giving $647 million to–among other things–such “family planning” organizations as Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider. Pro-lifers, of course, are calling it like it is:
Some groups, however, see the new effort as little more than hiding a bid to keep abortion legal.
Douglas Johnson, legislative director of National Right to Life, called the DeLauro-Ryan measure “a grab bag of existing programs. They’re not trying to change policy. They’re trying to change perception.”
In fact, the Courant does not quote a single pro-lifer in support of the so-called “Reducing the Need for Abortions Initiative.” So why did the Courant headline claim the initiative was a bid “from both sides”? The headline is patently false.
Here’s a more accurate one: “Sensing Public’s Pro-Life Shift, Pro-Abortion Congressmen Try Same Old Gimmick.”
The co-sponsor of the bill is pro-life Democrat Tim Ryan of Ohio. Let me guess: he doesn’t count somehow?
Maybe you should actually read the article before dragging out your sneering, derisive rhetoric.
But hey, oppose this one, please! Fall even farther out of the mainstream. Fine with me.
So far this year Ryan has a 0% rating from the National Right to Life Committee. He even voted against protecting the pro-life Mexico City policy.
Seems to me that instead of complaining about the title of the article – which isn’t all that bad – the FIC would celebrate some of the initiatives being highlighted, to wit:
“The first increase in more than six years in federal aid to family planning programs, allowing an additional 98,000 clients to be served and expanding contraceptive services.
Teen Pregnancy Prevention Grants to support what the lawmakers call “medically accurate, age-appropriate” approaches to preventing teen pregnancy.
Substantial funding increases in the Child Care Development Block Grant, which helps support low-income families receiving education and training, and after-school programs.
Big increases for after-school centers, which help serve teenagers unsupervised in those hours.
New grants for nurse home visitation programs, to help young mothers improve prenatal health and teach them to be better parents.
A 15.8 percent increase in funding for infant adoption awareness programs. ”
It seems to me that this is the real stuff of protecting families and working hard to help them survive, instead of the silliness of the post.
Tom Ryan is about as pro life as a butcher.
Ryan has a 80% rating from Natl Right to Life in the 109th Congress and an 73% rating in the 108th Congress. Half of his 2007 votes were on stem cell research (and one was, inexplicably, on Medicare prescriptions).
So anti-choice legislators also support DeLauro’s bill. But continue the circular firing squad, please.
Peter’s original complaint was that the Courant chose this particular headline “From Both Sides …” when in fact the article included no quotes from any pro-lifer who was in favor of the bill. Taken at face value, this complaint is valid. Tim Ryan was mentioned, but not quoted. The article actually quotes the following people:
1) Rosa DeLauro, a veritable princess of the culture of death, in favor of the bill
2) Karlyn Bowman, a polling analyst, with an neutral and factual observation
3) Rachel Laser, a political researcher, with a subtly-expressed pro-abortion bias
4) Nancy Keenan, an abortion activist, expressing opinions favorable to the bill
5) David Obey, a congressman who previously earned him the ire of Wisconsin RC Bishop Raymond Burke – who accused the representative of “manifest grave sin” based upon his abortion-related voting record, and who instructed that he is to be turned away from receiving the Eucharist.
6) Douglas Johnson, a pro-life activist, expressing opinion against the bill.
7) Mike Pence, a staunch pro-life supporter, on his proposed amendment to ensure that more money is not put into the hands of the abortionist group “Planned Parenthood”
In total, that’s 4 abortionists quoted in favor of the bill, 2 pro-lifers quoted against the bill, and 1 quote that expressed no opinion on the bill in either way.
None of this should surprise us. Attempting to “reframe” debate is a common tactic employed by those who are losing ground in the battle for the hearts and minds of the electorate. Or as John Bambenek has written:
And if the Courant misleads by its choice of headline, how much more so the bill itself! It’s called the “Reducing the Need for Abortions Initiative”. But stop and think about that choice of language for a moment, to recognize it for the spin that it is. Since when has there ever been a “need” for this horrific act? Perhaps there is a public “demand” for it, rooted in the sinful and selfish nature of man. Yet the authors of the bill do not choose to describe it in this way. Their deliberate choice of words in the title of the bill continues to perpetuate the misperception that there is a “need” for abortion.
Therefore we would be wise to keep vigilant, for language is continually being used as a weapon to subtly assault and undermine traditional family values.
Dave – outstanding rebuttal. Checkmate!
Dave, thank you.
The best that could be said in defending the Courant against my criticism of its headline is that, yes, the headline is false but not “patently” false. The sole justification for the “both sides” claim is Tim Ryan’s co-sponsorship of the bill and, indeed, Ryan was once pro-life. But he’s voted now frequently for abortion and embryo destruction and many no longer call him pro-life.
And–even pretending for argument’s sake that Ryan is still pro-life–the claim that this bill comes from “both sides” is pretty dubious if Ryan is the only “pro-lifer” to support it.
And that just might be the case. Genghis and puh-leez are playing their usual game of defining anyone who dares disagree with them as “out of the mainstream.” But no pro-life group–even Democrats for Life (DFLA)–supports Ryan and DeLauro’s bill (a point conveniently omitted from the Courant’s “both sides” story). DFLA supports another bill introduced by Lincoln Davis, a pro-life Democrat from Tennessee. Here’s an excerpt from a Dec. 7th LifeNews.com story (emphases added):
So, no, opposition to this bill is not “out of the mainstream” and, yes, the Courant’s headline is false.
All this political doublespeak mumbo-jumbo reminds me of the story of the guy who kept driving trucks of sand through a road checkpoint. The inspectors thought he was smuggling something in the sand, but every time they sifted through the sand, they found nothing. Later on, they finally realized he had been smuggling trucks the whole time.
“Need to reduce abortions”? It goes like this: overturn Roe vs. Wade; then they’ll be reduced. What flgrantly absurd drivel, and at taxpayer expense, no less! Do we only wish to “reduce” cancer or AIDS? We don’t need to reduce infanticide; we need to end it, and while we’re at it, we can all stop fooling ourselves with sugar-coated euphimisms like “choice” and “abortion,” because those who so advocate for this insidious atrocity cannot honestly and openly admit to what it really is. What does that tell us?
Meanwhile, for all this liberal spin do-gooder legislation, Planned Parenthood still gets a check cut from these alleged “reduced abortion” proponents like Rosa Delauro, right? More trucks, more sand!
As for “mainstream,” that’s in the eye of the beholder. “Mainstream” means popular, not correct. I don’t need to take a poll to discern right or wrong, and if the so-called “mainstream” disagrees with me, I’ll still sleep like a (surviving) baby at night.
Mainstream is grossly over-rated. If George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King Jr. were all in the mainstream, most blacks would still be in chains, some would be lynched, and all the rest of us would be sitting back on our laurels, sipping tea, eating crumpets and hailing the Queen as it all happened in front of us with our passive “mainstream” approval.
God’s will, illustarted and personified by the life, teachings and ultimate crucifixtion of Jesus give meaning and example to the phrase, “no guts, no glory.”
I couldn’t care less what the convolluted, secular so-called “mainstream” thinks. I’m a man, not a lemming. I do my own thinking and deciding, based on my formed conscience, not a trendy popularity contest, and espescially when the lives of our most innocent and defenseless brothers and sisters are at stake.
Thus far, we have slaughtered almost 50 million babies since 1973. For those who so embrace euphamisms, try this one on for size: “legalized holocaust”! That’s what the bottom line is here. Preach to me about the precious “mainstream” when the next 50 million future victims of “choice,” slated for slaughter, can be spared and actually be given the chance to be part of the mainstream.
What we have today isn’t “mainstream,” it’s more like a “bad dream,” and I wish the “mainstream” would wake up from it!!!
Doug