Abortion advocates say some outrageous things. Recently long-time pro-abortion leader Gloria Steinem made news for claiming that climate change exists because there aren’t enough abortions. No matter what abortion fans say, it seems that the abortion-friendly media covers for them. Recently, AP wrote a glowing feature on Steinem, calling her a “Feminist icon.”
You can be sure that if the media is pointing out only the positives about abortion advocates, there are things they are leaving out — like certain inconsistencies in messaging. Here are four things the media isn’t pointing out when it comes to those who advocate in favor of abortion:
1. Abortion advocates can’t seem to agree on the ‘pro-abortion’ title
Gloria Steinem has called it “obviously ridiculous” to call someone ‘pro-abortion’, and then went on to say that “[t]he question is not pro-abortion or anti-abortion, the question is who makes the decision: a woman and her physician, or the government.”
What is this “decision” to which Gloria Steinem refers? It’s “the decision” to end the life of an innocent, defenseless, and vulnerable preborn human life. When someone is willing to support the “choice” to have an abortion, it’s the support of a “choice” which is so brutal, so unfortunate, and so devastatingly final often that it is not enough to dress that person up as “pro-choice.” If that person is willing to support anyone making that “choice,” that person supports abortion and is thus pro-abortion.
If anyone is pro-abortion, it’s those who make up the abortion industry and profit from it, especially Planned Parenthood, which opposes any and all commonsense abortion regulations.
It’s also certainly not “ridiculous” to call someone ‘pro-abortion’ if they themselves proudly admit to it. “I am pro-abortion, not just pro-choice,”declared Valerie Tarico for Salon.
2. Abortion advocates can’t seem to decide on whether abortion is “political”
It should go without saying that our government will protect all lives, including voiceless preborn Americans. Unfortunately, we are included in only a handful of nations which allows for abortions up until birth, for any reason. The way to change that is arguably to change the law, by going through the political and judicial system.
Abortion advocates are working from a political standpoint as well. Steinem admits as much to AP:
But [Steinem] said in past decades supporting Planned Parenthood was “not as electoral as it is now.” She said the organization did not even have a political arm in the early days, “it was a service provider.”
That has changed in recent years, as abortion rights groups have sharpened their attacks against Planned Parenthood’s key role in providing legal abortions.
Planned Parenthood vowed to spend an unprecedented $20 million in the 2016 elections, and still lost. In 2012, however, possibly using taxpayer dollars, the organization spent $15 million to re-elect pro-abortion President Barack Obama. When Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards testified before a Congressional panel in September 2015, takeaways from the testimony included concerns that taxpayer subsidies which were supposed to fund Planned Parenthood, the so-called “service provider,” were funding political affiliates as well.
Richards has flip-flopped on whether or not abortion and Planned Parenthood are political. When asked about the existence of pro-life Democrats by self-professed “pro-choice Republican” Nicolle Wallace on MSNBC, Richards claimed “abortion… shouldn’t be politicized.”
But Richards has a political (not healthcare) background, and has revealed her desire to repeal “every single restriction” on abortion. That sounds pretty political to me.
3. Abortion advocates are still making the debunked claims that Planned Parenthood is a life-saving organization, and that abortion is only a tiny percentage of its services.
Cancer survivor Leah Westwater “credits a Planned Parenthood doctor in California with early detection of her thyroid cancer” in an AP article attempting to paint Planned Parenthood in a positive light. While we can all be genuinely thankful Westwater’s cancer was caught early, Westwater is in what is becoming more and more the minority when it comes to those receiving cancer screenings from Planned Parenthood. These legitimate health care services have been plummeting at Planned Parenthood, even while the organization’s taxpayer dollars have increased.
AP isn’t the only one to promote Planned Parenthood, of course. Joss Whedon’s pro-Planned Parenthood propaganda short film, “Unlocked,” spun a tale of a woman who survived her cancer because it was caught early at Planned Parenthood.
But did the AP or Joss Whedon note that Planned Parenthood performs less than 2 percent of breast exams, less than 1 percent of Pap tests, less than 2 percent of all women’s cancer screenings in the United States, and zero mammograms? Of course not. Clearly, women are getting these services elsewhere.
At the AP, Westwater also claimed that “abortions represent only about 5 percent of the organization’s work.” Usually, Planned Parenthood and its supporters claim that abortions make up only 3 percent of its services, which is false, as explained here by Live Action, and in this video. Planned Parenthood is an abortion corporation. If a woman comes in for an abortion (one “service”), she may likely get a pregnancy test, ultrasound, STD test, and a few months’ supply of birth control (each of which counts as a “service”). Therefore, abortion — the very reason for the visit — is counted as only one of seven services she received that day. This is how Planned Parenthood gets its 3 percent figure.
In a rare display of pro-abortion honesty, Slate even called the 3 percent number “The Most Meaningless Abortion Statistic Ever.”
4. Abortion advocates don’t seem to want common ground — just more abortion.
The idea of pushing for a policy of paid maternity leave, which President Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, helped to influence, was criticized by Gloria Steinem, who claimed the policy “isn’t the policy that people want.” She went on to say that the idea “is the policy of every authoritarian regime that I know of, because they pay women to have children to have more soldiers and more workers, but they don’t support parenthood, fathers, adoption.”
Wait, what? Paid family leave, which some pro-lifers support, could be a form of common ground for those on both sides of the abortion debate who agree that parenting mothers need more support. But not for Gloria Steinem, who apparently thinks paid maternity leave leads to “more soldiers,” and more abortion leads to less climate change.
So much for finding common ground.
