The media’s recent coverage of abortion legislation is pretty one-sided.
Bills dramatically restricting abortion get breathless, nonstop coverage, while radical pro-choice bills quietly slip under the radar. A search of three major outlets, using the Nexis service, puts this distinction in clear relief.
For example, the New York Times ran three times more articles focusing on the Georgia heartbeat bill than on New York’s own Reproductive Health Act, which decriminalized third-trimester abortions. If we look at all articles that even mentioned the laws, the supposedly New York publication covered the Georgia bill about twice as much as the New York bill.
Yes, outlawing nearly all abortions puts Georgia at the far end of the spectrum in this country. But in the same way, legalizing abortion until the moment before delivery puts New York at the far end of abortion law in the world.
Other mainstream media outlets show similar trends. The Associated Press ran four times more articles focusing on the Georgia bill and three times more articles mentioning it. The Washington Post ran twice as many articles focusing on the Georgia bill and nearly three times more articles mentioning it.
On a smaller scale, the same thing happened with two other states last week.
On Thursday, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards signed a pro-life heartbeat bill into law, and both houses of the Illinois legislature passed a radical pro-choice bill last week. But if you follow mainstream media outlets, you were far more likely to hear about the Louisiana bill.
In covering these two bills, the AP published five times more articles mentioning the Louisiana bill, and The New York Times published nine times more articles covering the Louisiana bill.
When covering pro-life legislation, these outlets have clearly spelled out the legislated abortion restrictions in an effort to paint pro-life policy as radical. However, in the sparse coverage they’ve given to the pro-choice bills, these outlets have provided very few details, if any. For example, in its only article to even mention the Illinois abortion bill, The New York Times simply said the bill “would protect abortion rights” and provided no further details.
Similarly, the Associated Press said the bill would “bolster the right to abortion.”
Both outlets failed to specify that the bill would allow third trimester abortions, including partial-birth abortions, and repeal conscience protections for doctors, nurses, and Catholic hospitals who do not want to perform these inhumane procedures.
Maybe the editors at these outlets know these liberal policies are wildly unpopular. A 2019 Marist poll found that 3 in 4 Americans want “substantial abortion restrictions,” and in a 2019 Harvard poll, only 8% of respondents supported allowing third-trimester abortions nationwide.
