WaPo's Abortion Debate: Antiabortion Conservatives vs. Comprehensive Nonprofits?
By Tim Graham | August 27, 2011 | 07:40
The Washington Post knows how to signal which side in the abortion debate they favor. In both Friday's and Saturday's Metro sections, they describe the two sides in a tilted way as they cover new clinic regulations in Virginia, which insist abortion clinics be just like ambulatory surgical centers, since many abortions are still surgical.
One side is "conservative" and "antiabortion." The other side is not labeled liberal, but they are "reproductive-health activists," and the Guttmacher Institute, which was founded as a division of Planned Parenthood and is named after Alan Guttmacher, a past Planned Parenthood president and "Old Testament prophet", is described as a "nonprofit reproductive health research center that gathers the most comprehensive data on abortion in the United States." In other words, bow to their comprehensive, nonpartisan authority.
Friday's story by Anita Kumar and Lena Sun began:
Virginia health officials are planning to release draft emergency regulations for abortion clinics as soon as Friday that reproductive-health activists say could impose strict physical, staffing and equipment requirements and could force many of the state's clinics to close....
"These really have nothing to do with patients and everything to do with making it harder to provide abortion services," said Elizabeth Nash, a public- policy analyst for the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit reproductive health research center that gathers the most comprehensive data on abortion in the United States.
This "nothing to do with patients" line is highlighted in a pull quote, even though it's not a researcher's line. It's an abortion advocate's line. Nash is correct that making clinics meet a surgical-center standard has caused clinics to close in other states, as the Post notes. But in its ideological approach, the Post does not wish to consider that some abortion clinics could be accused of being sub-standard in patient care. Then came the labels:
Antiabortion activists have long been urging that Virginia abortion clinics be treated like ambulatory surgical centers, arguing that doing so would make the clinics safer.
"After more than two decades of hiding behind a veil of politically motivated secrecy, abortion centers in Virginia now face real, tangible regulations,'' said Victoria Cobb, executive director of the conservative Family Foundation.
The Friday story ended with an emphasis on abortionist complaints:
The Planned Parenthood clinic in Falls Church, which had 5,000 patients last year and performed 800 abortions, rents its space, so it would be virtually impossible for the clinic to do any remodeling, said Laura Meyers, its chief executive officer.
Moreover, she said, clinics are allowed to perform only first-trimester abortions, which typically involve medication rather than surgery.
“Why would a wider hallway have anything to do with taking a pill?” she said.
Did Kumar and Sun ask specifically if most abortions in Falls Church are pharmaceutical rather than surgical? And couldn't it be argued that if the Falls Church abortionists are renting, it would be easier to just move and find a property that matches the new space requirements? That might sound easier than having to redesign a property that's owned.
The Post repeated the pattern on Saturday, with the “nonprofit” Guttmacher Institute (and its comprehensive data and no Planned Parenthood linkage) versus the “conservative” Family Foundation and the Virginia Catholic Conference.
Graham's Law of Labeling applies: "The epic political battles of our time are fought between the conservatives and the nonpartisans."
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Comments
Funny how the Left wants to
Submitted by kareling on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 8:01am.
Funny how the Left wants to regulate to death every kind of business and industry . . . except abortion.
they are attempting to kill
Submitted by jkwtrading on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 12:32pm.
they are attempting to kill us all when they regulate Carbon Dioxide.
Old Testament prophet???
Submitted by motherbelt on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 8:01am.
What the???????
Tim, I love "Graham's Law of Labeling."
Made me laugh out loud.
Just remember ....
Submitted by jmigyanka@msn.com on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 8:27am.
.... the opposite of Pro-Life is Pro-Death.
Whenever this argument over
Submitted by Reaver on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 8:55am.
Whenever this argument over the regulation of abortion clinics comes up I am reminded of the case of Kermit Gosnell and the shop of horrors he ran in Philadelphia. Quoting Philadelphia district attorney Seth Williams “There is more oversight over women's hair salons than over abortion clinics," he said. "His hadn't been inspected since 1993. He didn't have the appropriate emergency equipment. That's why women died there. He ruptured uteruses and intestines of women. He didn't … give women oxygen if they needed it or checked their heart or pulse."
The board of health said they stopped performing inspections of abortion clinics because they feared it would restrict women’s access to abortions.
http://www.myfoxphilly.com/dpp/news/local_news/Abortion_Doctor_Murder_Ch...
Maybe that Doctor will make
Submitted by jkwtrading on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 12:31pm.
Maybe that Doctor will make house calls to the White House.
The Dallas Morning News
Submitted by TE on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 9:16am.
The Dallas Morning News routinely uses the "nonprofit group" formulation to describe the latest collection of two or three whack job, kook fringe leftists who have sent the Dallas Morning News a press release for the Dallas Morning News to dutifully regurgitate and call "news".
If there is a law to "have a wider hallway"....
Submitted by Texndoc on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 11:20am.
.....you can thank a lib, I can guarantee. Yeah, but for THEE not for ME!!!
"reproductive-health
Submitted by jkwtrading on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 12:30pm.
"reproductive-health activists,"
three words for DEATH.
Old Testament Prophet??????
Submitted by THBarb on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 5:07pm.
The job of the Old Testament Prophets was to preach God's word and in some cases, foretell God's word. If any of the foretelling proved wrong, he was to be stoned.
But why have they called this abortionist and OT Prophet? Not knowing the Bible, they probably meant "Patriarch" but that term would be offensive to them so they used a term they didn't understand instead of one they abhor.
If they would only listen to the real Old Testament Prophets, we'd all be a lot better off.
So let me see:
Submitted by LaVallette on Sun, 08/28/2011 - 4:51am.
So let me see: According to the "Non Profits":
Protesting against Abortion outside Abortion factories must be regulated, but
Carrying out of abortions inside the Abortion factories must not be regulated.
Yet:
The first is a freedom protected by the US Constitution
The second goes contrary to every prudence demanded by medical professionalism.:But under the then it is only poor women, mostly of colour and their unwanted babies who are involved. They are used to third world medical treatment. They should be thankful that they are the sacrificial victims to the Primary Feminist sacrament of Abaortion..