USA Today accuses pro-lifers of essentially eliminating the right to abortion in Texas because of the recent safety restrictions enforced in abortion facilities. It’s the second newspaper in less than a month to engage its entire editorial board in taking a pro-abortion stand and resorting to a sort of editorial bullying in the name of supporting abortion.
The editorial argues that the enforcement of HB2 in Texas essentially eliminates a woman’s right to choose abortion, claiming:
“[W]hen states use safety as a pretext to put providers out of business, they make abortion riskier for all women and deny some a right guaranteed four decades ago.”
Because, the paper argues, some women now have to drive farther to obtain an abortion, that is the fault of Texas. The paper places no responsibility on the abortion industry, which has had years to construct clinics in barren places if they wanted to perform abortions there and comply with the law. Abortion, the paper would seem to argue, is being stolen unjustly. It continues:
“Since 1973’s Roe v. Wade ruling, abortion foes have been chipping away at its guarantee. Today, clinics are so burdened by restrictions that abortions are hard to obtain in many states and almost impossible to get in some. Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota and South Dakota, for example, are each down to a single clinic.”
USA Today doesn’t make it clear how many abortion clinics need to exist to be satisfied enough abortion is out there. The editorial closes by saying:
“Federal courts across the country have reached conflicting conclusions on the constitutionality of the Texas-style restrictions. Surely, at least one case is heading to the Supreme Court.
“When it arrives, the justices ought to recognize that a right burdened by so many unnecessary obstacles ceases at some point to be a right at all.”
While USA Today may feel the right to abortion is being usurped, passing regulatory laws for many health care procedures isn’t unusual, nor does it cease to make a medical procedure “not a right” simply because it’s harder to come by.
Editorials are not the same as opinion columns written by one person (as this particular piece is); rather, an editorial is composed of a board of journalists who represent the voice of the paper and exist to speak for the paper to influence public opinion. An editorial is a weighty responsibility. To speak as the heartbeat of the nation and endorse the ending of more heartbeats comes off as more politically motivated pandering for Planned Parenthood and its pals than it does trying to give a journalistic view on a law.
When an editorial board endorses a political candidate, it often meets with both candidates and forms an endorsement decision. But when it comes to abortion, the editorial climate of the nation’s papers, if the last month is any indication, seems to be shifting to the same “abortion on demand without apology” ideology we hear from the abortion industry.
What USA Today has seemed to forget is how this law began. HB2 was a bill in the House and then Senate, signed by the governor, upheld by the courts, including the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. USA Today certainly points out that Texas is the “most populous state” with such abortion restrictions, but what it fails to note is the obvious: A dictator did not impose these regulations. The people of Texas voted these men and women into office to represent them in the House, Senate, and Governor’s office. There was no unilateral conspiracy.
While the pro-abortion lobby would have us believe the loudest is the most representative, one must ask why Texans vote so many into office who support life. The many representatives who voted for HB2 are the actual voice of Texas, elected by the people, and they have done a better job of being that voice than the USA Today editorial did at being the voice of the nation in its editorial.
