Anatomy of misreporting

Pay attention, it’s getting close in South Dakota.

Elections are a few weeks away, and the referendum on the “Women’s Health and Human Life Protection Law” is on the ballot there, known to aborton backers as the ‘abortion ban’ and fiercely challenged by Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America. There’s so much at stake.

It’s understandable why those pro-aborton groups have thrown so much into a campaign of disinformation in the state. But why have the media been buying into it? That’s for them to answer. But for us, here in the Forum, to straighten out.

So let’s see where things stand…

While the law, if approved, will almost certainly be challenged in court, the campaign is under scrutiny by those on all sides of the national debate eager to see whether voters in a conservative, largely antiabortion state are ready to approve an all-out ban on abortion.

The key to that sentence is that the law will be challenged in court. More on that in a moment…

If the ban is voted down, it will indicate even abortion opponents aren’t willing to rein in all rights, and it will diminish the chances that other states will pass similar bans. If it’s approved, observers expect other states to follow, and it’s possible a court challenge could reach the Supreme Court.

“Even abortion opponents” is selective wording to cue you, the reader, to think badly of pro-life activists, and “rights” is chosen to cue you to think positively about their agenda. And this paragraph reveals their real worry: that other states will follow South Dakota’s lead, and this whole Pandora’s box could reach the Supreme Court — this particular Supreme Court, to be specific.

It’s a decision many residents of South Dakota are wrestling with.

Especially with Planned Parenthood leaning on them.

“It’s really tough for us,” Dick Ronken tells an antiabortion canvasser. “We’re against abortion, but I think they haven’t gone far enough to provide for all cases. It should be between a woman and her God and her doctor, without the government interfering.”

That’s straight out of the Planned Parenthood, NARAL playbook. And by the way, the abortion task force report proved that abortion was not handled honestly between a woman and her doctor, because abortionists were not meeting the state requirements for informed consent.

Back to the news…

Ronken’s views aren’t unusual in a state where many oppose abortion but look at it in personal terms — and often oppose government intrusion in their lives. In fact, some abortion-rights advocates say the soul-searching debate this vote has forced is one they welcome, hopeful it will lead to a decision to overturn the ban.

This is just clearly tendentious reporting. “Government intrusion” was what led to the informed consent bill (HB 1166) in the first place, requiring doctors to GIVE the women information, which they get in all other medical procedures in the state (and any state). “Soul searching debate” that will lead to overturning the ban on abortion is just wishful thinking.

Now look at what the article throws in here:

(According to its Web site, “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints opposes elective abortion for personal or social convenience, and counsels its members not to submit to, perform, encourage, pay for, or arrange for such abortions.” However, it does have some possible exceptions for that rule if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, a “competent” doctor says the mother’s life is in serious jeopardy, or a “competent” doctor says the fetus has severe defects and won’t survive beyond birth.)

First, read the sentence before the “However” part. Then consider this. Nearly every single news article reported on this law has promulgated the myth that the South Dakota law does not allow a rape or incest exception. It does.

Now look at this:

Opponents of the ban hold a small lead in polls — 47 percent to 44 percent in a recent Zogby International poll — but that lead has narrowed. If the ban allowed exceptions in cases of rape and incest, polls show a sizeable majority would support it.

First, what has narrowed is the lead the Planned Parenthood crowd garnered over the summer by misleading people, tipping the vote against the life protection law. Now it’s closer, so the pro-life forces have narrowed the recent lead. That’s important. Second, the ban DOES allow exceptions in cases of rape and incest. So a sizeable majority SHOULD support it. This is simple logic.

Those opposed to the ban have shied away from promoting access to abortion, focusing instead on the bill’s strictness, which doesn’t include exceptions for rape, incest, or the mother’s health but would allow an abortion to save her life.

AHA! “Those opposed to the ban” are obviously pro-abortion people, and this reporting reveals that they have decided to ‘shy away from promoting access to abortion’…..why?…because it’s more strategic to focus instead “on the bill’s strictness, which doesn’t include exceptions for rape, incest, or the mother’s health,” THOUGH IT DOES. Hitler said that if you repeat a lie often enough it will become truth….

Get this:

“Honor and protect human life, reduce the number of abortions,” says one TV ad sponsored by the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families, the coalition opposing the ban. “But should a woman who’s the victim of rape or incest be left with no option? … Referred Law 6 makes no exception for these tragic circumstances. … It just goes too far.”

The “Campaign for Healthy Families” is the group started by Planned Parenthood, misnomer that it is. So be clear on that. Of course they’re opposed to a ban on abortion.

And no, “a woman who’s the victim of rape of rape or incest” is not left with no options, because — to repeat – the South Dakota law DOES have an exception for rape and incest. Could we get this straight?

Of the 800 or so abortions performed in the state each year, only a few are due to rape or incest, but for many voters those are the instances they keep coming back to.

That’s because Planned Parenthood and NARAL keep beating that issue like a drum, and insisting the South Dakota law doesn’t allow for exceptions. One woman who is campaigning door-to-door across the state against the protection of life law is quoted at the end of the article in a telling statement about people’s reactions to their campaign.

“They make it sound like if you were Christian you would be for it,” she says with frustration. “We have a doctor in the family, and he feels very strongly it should be a medical thing.”

Exactly. Roe v. Wade made the assumption, now seen as one of the false assumptions of Roe (see the task force report), that the decision to have an abortion would be an intensely personal one between a woman and her doctor, and based upon a conversation of fully informed consent. When the South Dakota legislators tried to require that informed consent by law, Planned Parenthood immediately sued to stop the law from requiring that doctors inform the women about the procedure.

So who really feels strongly that it should be a medical thing? And while I’m asking….define ‘medical thing.’