News,  Politics

Democracy Dies in Darkness: Misinformation from both Washington Post and NY Times about the President’s remarks on abortion

President Trump just finished his state of the union address moments ago. The speech was wide-ranging, but I have to say that his remarks about abortion were the most hard-hitting that I have ever heard in a state of the union address. He exposed the Democrats’ extremism on the issue by referencing their support for late-term abortion and (as in the case of the Governor of Virginia) their support for allowing some babies to die after birth.

The New York Times already has a “fact-check” posted on this part of the President’s speech, and the “fact-check” is in error. Here it is:

Mr. Trump said that lawmakers in New York cheered the passage of legislation that would allow a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb moments before birth.

This is misleading.

On Jan. 22, the 46th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat of New York, signed the Reproductive Health Act, which ensures a woman’s right to an abortion in New York if Roe v. Wade were to be overturned. It does not broadly allow abortions until shortly before birth, as Mr. Trump suggested. Instead, it will allow for an abortion after 24 weeks to protect the mother’s health or if the fetus is not viable. Under the prior law, abortions were allowed after 24 weeks only if the woman’s life was in jeopardy.

This is a prime example of why fact-checkers have to be fact-checked. The Times claims that the Reproductive Health Act “does not broadly allow abortions until shortly before birth.” Wrong! The new law actually does broadly allow abortions until shortly before birth. The President is not being misleading at all on this point, but the Times is being misleading to say that he is.

The “health” exception in New York’s law means that a woman can seek an abortion for virtually any reason through all nine months of pregnancy. The “health” exception as defined by Doe v. Bolton is why abortion-on-demand is the law of the land today. In fact, the law was designed to guarantee the same right to late-term abortion that Roe and Doe uphold in the event that they are overturned. The New York law accomplishes the same thing as Roe and Doe, and it does so by design. Everyone acknowledges this. Why can’t The New York Times?

The mainstream media needs to come to grips with the fact that their reporting on abortion is often so biased that they cannot even get their own “fact-checks” right. Until they do, they shouldn’t be surprised that about half the country is going to view them with justified incredulity.

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UPDATE: The Washington Post ran an ad during the Superbowl featuring the paper’s slogan “Democracy Dies in the Darkness.” Indeed it does, especially when papers like The Washington Post obscure hard facts with inaccurate “fact-checking.”

It turns out that the Post makes the same error as The New York Times in “fact-checking” the President’s abortion remarks during the State of the Union address. In his speech, President Trump spoke of New York “legislation that would allow a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb moments before birth.” Here is how the Post responds to this claim:

The legislation in New York would not have “allowed a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb moments before birth.” It states a health-care practitioner “may perform an abortion when, according to the practitioner’s reasonable and good faith professional judgment based on the facts of the patient’s case: the patient is within twenty-four weeks from the commencement of pregnancy, or there is an absence of fetal viability, or the abortion is necessary to protect the patient’s life or health.”

The astonishing thing about this so-called “fact-check” is that it is self-contradictory. The Post claims that the law does not allow a baby to be “ripped from the mother’s womb moments before birth.” But then in the same paragraph admits that the law does in fact allow late term abortions when they are necessary to protect a mother’s “health.” Again, the “health” exception has a broad definition because of the Supreme Court decision Doe v. Bolton. It is why the current law of the land allows for abortion through all nine months of pregnancy up to the point of birth.

Either the “fact-checkers” at the Post don’t know this, or they are deliberately concealing this fact. In either case, they have no business “fact-checking” the President’s correct statements if they don’t even understand the basic tenets of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton.

Indeed, democracy dies in darkness. Even worse, human beings die in the darkness fostered by “fact-checkers” who conceal the brutality of late-term abortion from their readers.