Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
(Exodus 20:16)
This is the first of an occasional series in which I will provide examples of misrepresentations, tall tales, fabrications, out-of-control spin and outright lies told mainly by Christians to advance some favorite agenda such as America being founded as a Christian nation or the undermining of the separation of church and state. There are many kinds of lies and the differences between them usually center around the liar's intent (there's an excellent discussion on the various types of lies here in Wikipedia). I am mostly interested in ones where the intent is to deceive. Lies told out of ignorance are of less interest and brain-dead hyperbole such as Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson's recent comment about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor ("I think Obama has reached out to one of the most left-wing judges that there is in the United States. I think it's an outrage.") will be included only for their humor value.Anyone that follows my writings is probably (or at least hopefully) aware that I'm mainly interested in promoting critical thinking and factual accuracy rather than chiding Christians per se. There are a few atheist tall tales I'll be writing about too. They'll wait though since they don't fall into the "current event" category. Today's little gem is very current though. It appeared July 24th in Life News, an organization that bills itself as a pro-life news agency, under the heading "North Dakota Abortion Business Sues to Stop Women From Seeing Ultrasounds". Here's the lead paragraph:
"A Fargo, North Dakota abortion business has filed a lawsuit to stop women from having the ability (the bold print is mine) to see an ultrasound of their unborn children before they have an abortion. Gov. John Hoeven signed the measure into law in May after the state House easily approved the ultrasound measure."
Wow, anyone interested in women's rights ought to be against that! Life News is doing women a service by exposing this potential infringement against their right to see an ultrasound... except that's not what's really happening here. The measure they're talking about is North Dakota HB 1371. It was signed into law in May and is scheduled to go into effect on August 1st. What it does is it requires that any pregnant woman considering an abortion must be offered an active ultrasound of the foetus (and requires her signed response to the offer) before she is allowed to go through with the procedure. The Red River Women's Clinic, the only abortion-provider left in the state, filed a suit to prevent the law from going into effect.
HB 1371 doesn't protect a woman's right to see an ultrasound. It requires them to be offered one before they're allowed to have an abortion in hopes of delaying it and inducing a woman to change her mind. That's why there's a lawsuit against it. No right is being denied by the suit. It's a protest against a new restriction on what's already a woman's legal right; the right to have an abortion. It is one of two anti-abortion bills the governor signed in May. The other one, HB 1445, requires the doctor to inform the woman that "the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique living human being" at least 24 hours before the procedure.
I have my own opinion on the abortion issue but that's not why I am featuring Life News' despicable little article. It's here because it's a misrepresentation of reality designed to show this legislation as doing something it doesn't; championing women's rights... and showing the Red River Women's Clinic as doing something it doesn't; opposing them. There is nothing in the article that implies anything else.
Photo Credit:
1) Pinnochio
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Comments
Good article, Hugh. Have you tried to contact the writer of the story for a response? If so, I'd be interested to hear it.
Of course as you know I think anyone getting an abortion should absolutely be required to see an ultrasound before doing so (after all, don't even pro-choice advocates want abortion to be "safe, legal, and rare"?? Anything that would help prevent women from going through with it would work towards that goal, would it not?). But regardless, I don't condone lying in order to further the cause.
Thanks, JM. As always I value your opinion and recommend your recent article written with the Islamic examiner for it's interesting content.
As to HB 1371 and 1445, the intent there is not to make abortions safe and legal, just rare by throwing as many monkey-wrenches into the process as possible. They're already safe or abortion clinics wouldn't have been able to replace cheaper, back-alley practioners, and it's already legal or back-alley practioners is all we'd have -just like in the good old days before Roe v Wade.
As to the guy who wrote the story I featured? He's the Life News site editor and undoubtedly knows exactly how he wants to present things. I think contacting him would be a waste of time but if you do it, I'd love to know his response. I'd give odds he'd address anything EXCEPT the issue of how he slants the coverage.
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