The New York Times published a shameful opinion article last week titled, “Why Do We Talk About Miscarriage Differently From Abortion?”
Because one is voluntary, while the other is not? Where do I collect my prize?
It’s as if to say: “Why Do We Talk About Cancer Differently From Suicide?” Is this supposed to be a serious question?
“The line between abortion and pregnancy loss has always been blurry,” the New York Times article argued. Not really!
“Today abortion and pregnancy loss are generally perceived as two different things, at least in part because of anti-abortion strategy,” the article’s authors, University of Pittsburgh School of Law associate professor Greer Donley and University of Arkansas School of Law associate dean Jill Wieber Lens, wrote. “Decades ago, the anti-abortion movement realized that it could weaponize grief after pregnancy loss to suggest the callousness of abortion and to promote the concept of fetal personhood.”
The article’s mention of “weaponized grief” includes a hyperlink to a 49-page Pepperdine Law Review article published in 1995. The word “grief” appears nowhere in the paper. The New York Times would have done well to include a clearer, more straightforward citation. Otherwise, people may get the idea the article, with the newspaper’s blessing, is an explicit attempt to slander the pro-life movement.
“As that movement moved aggressively to give fetuses rights in a variety of legal contexts as a way to undermine abortion rights — again, often capitalizing on grief after pregnancy loss — the abortion-rights movement reflexively opposed these measures,” the op-ed claimed (emphasis added). Citation required!
Adding to the impression the authors don’t quite know what they’re talking about, the article boomeranged between mentions of “pregnant woman” and “pregnant persons,” as if the authors couldn’t quite decide how best to refer to the women they’re ostensibly defending. “Fetal value erases the pregnant person’s perspective,” the article said, chiming in later with advice for how the pro-abortion rights lobby can win the national debate. “It does not damage the movement to admit that some people become attached to their children in utero and that attachment has value.”
Here’s a tip for winning hearts and minds: Talk like a normal human being. The above sentences read like something spat out by a robot that was forced to read tweets written by diversity and inclusion officers.
More seriously, this opinion article is a good example of one of the lesser-discussed subplots regarding the Supreme Court’s disastrous 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Namely, it absolved pro-abortion rights activists from having to consider for even a moment the arguments and ethical implications of their positions. For nearly 50 years, they’ve had the privilege of simply hand-waving away such questions and debates with the catchall response, “Settled law!”
As a result, the mental muscles they flexed in the pre-Roe era seem to have atrophied — to the point where they basically no longer work. Consequently, pro-abortion rights activists have responded to the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe, and the subsequent related moral and ethical questions, with astonishingly lazy, hackneyed, and nonsensical arguments. It’s almost as if they haven’t thought about their positions for the past several decades because, well, “Roe is settled law!”
They hate you
Whenever a figure on the Right dies, it’s a given someone in the corporate press will spit on his or her grave.
It’s rare, practically unheard of, that the same happens to the Left.
On Aug. 3, with the sudden death of Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-IN) and two aides, the Washington Post took the political dance-graving genre to a new low.
In an obituary announcing the congresswoman’s untimely passing, Washington Post reporter Eugene Scott made sure to end his article with the following lines: “A Donald Trump supporter, Walorski voted against impeaching the president in 2021 for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, which resulted in the deaths of one police officer and four others and injured more than 100 law enforcement officers. She also voted against confirming Democrat Joe Biden’s victories in Arizona and Pennsylvania in the 2020 presidential election.”
Translation: It’s sad she’s dead, but not that sad. After all, she was an election truther.
Nearly as infuriating as the tastelessness of it all is the fact the Washington Post would never end an obituary for a Democratic legislator, even an election truther, in a similarly snide manner. This isn’t mere speculation. Just compare the paper’s handling of Walorski’s death to its coverage in 2021 of the death of Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL).
Hastings, you may recall, was part of a Democratic-led effort in 2001 to block the certification of George W. Bush as president. Hastings even participated in a congressional walkout staged during the certification process, being the first to register his objections when he claimed there was ample proof of voter fraud.
“I object to the certificate from Florida,” he said on the floor of the House.
He added, speaking to then-Vice President Al Gore directly, “Mr. President, and I take great pride in calling you that, I must object because of the overwhelming evidence of official misconduct, deliberate fraud, and an attempt to suppress voter turnout.
After the Democratic effort to overturn the results of the election failed on the floor of the House and Bush was declared the legitimate victor of the 2000 presidential election, Hastings turned to Gore and said, “We did all we could, Mr. President.”
Later, after Hastings passed, the Washington Post marked his death with a glowing, teary-eyed obituary titled, “Rep. Alcee Hastings, civil rights lawyer and judge elected to 15 terms in Congress, dies at 84.”
The news article, which at least mentions Hastings’s many scandals, including the fact he was removed as a federal judge following a bribery investigation, refers to the late representative as “charismatic,” “pathbreaking,” and “a folk hero.” It also mentions his “endurance” and “personal magnetism.”
Not included in the obituary, however, are mentions of Hastings’s attempt in 2001 to block the certification of Bush as president. The obituary certainly didn’t end on a note not-so-subtly informing the reader, “This person was a crank anyway.”
It must’ve slipped their minds at the Washington Post to include this detail from Hastings’s long life. Unflattering, tasteless sendoffs are for dead Republicans only, apparently.
Becket Adams is the program director of the National Journalism Center.
