Abortion

“Stop Compromising,” pleaded New York Times Editorial Page editor Andrew Rosenthal on his “Loyal Opposition” blog Wednesday morning.

Rosenthal was aggrieved to hear Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod suggest the president was open to “compromise”on the administration’s plan requiring religious institutions to violate their beliefs and cover birth control in their employees’ health insurance plans. (Apparently compromise is no longer a good thing in Washington.)

Rosenthal (pictured) urged Obama to make a more full-throated defense of the rule, pointing out that “this isn’t a theocracy.”

On the February 8 episode of MSNBCs Martin Bashir program, the host along with liberal Democrat Rep. Peter Walsh (Vt.) used the contraception mandate controversy to advocate the elusive liberal Democratic dream of a Canada-style government-run health care monopoly. [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Bashir started the interview -- better described as a Democrat strategy session -- to blast Speaker John Boehner for his opposition to the Obama administration’s health care ruling.

The liberal women on The View, Wednesday, shrieked at the "totalitarian" decision by a Texas judge to uphold a law requiring women to look at an ultrasound before having an abortion. Co-host and journalist Barbara Walters found the legal ruling– and not the act of abortion itself-- to be "heartbreaking." [See video below. See MP3 audio here.]

Regarding the ruling, left-wing comedienne Joy Behar spewed, "It's very totalitarian in my opinion. I mean, it smacks of forcing somebody to confront something that they have already decided they don't want to deal with." Rather than focus on the actual abortion, Walters lectured, "Then to have to go and be forced to hear, to see the fetus, to hear the heartbeat, to put more guilt on you, I think is heartbreaking."

Media critic Mollie Hemingway, a contributor to GetReligion.org, has an excellent post up today at CNN's Belief Blog about how the liberal media did a horrible job when it came to objectively reporting the implications of the recent Komen for the Cure/Planned Parenthood row. In fact, the media have shown themselves "effective partisans" by telling only "half the story," the half spoon-fed by socially liberal lobby groups like Planned Parenthood.

Be sure to check out the whole thing here, but below the page break I've appended some key excerpts (emphasis mine):

During a syrupy interview with Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards on Monday's The Last Word, MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell was so impressed with her that he concluded the segment by declaring that she is worthy to be ambassador to the United Nations. O'Donnell:

CNN's blatant double-standard in covering religious and social issues was manifested in its lopsided coverage of two different stories over the past few weeks.

When prominent religious leaders condemned an Obama administration mandate as an attack on religious freedom, the network gave the controversy one brief mention in ten days. But when liberal outrage ensued over a cancer charity pulling its funding of leading abortion provider Planned Parenthood, CNN reported the story the next day and promptly followed it up with more coverage.

New York Times reporter Michael Grynbaum wrote a valentine in news story format for Saturday’s edition on Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s heavily publicized donation to the abortion provider Planned Parenthood, after it initially lost funding from the Susan G. Komen breast cancer charity: “With Fine Timing, Bloomberg Makes a Financial Pledge That Excites and Engages.”

Raising not a whisper of criticism about the righteousness of Bloomberg’s big pro-abortion donations, Grynbaum called it the mayor's “biggest political coups in years and gave him, at least for the moment, a rejuvenated voice on the national stage,” and claiming it “reflected the mayor’s longtime support for the causes of reproductive rights and women’s health.” But Grynbaum skipped the less flattering side of Bloomberg's apparent enthusiasm for abortion.

Editor's Note: What follows is a letter that NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center president Brent Bozell sent to the presidents of the news divisions of ABC, CBS, and NBC as well as to CNN president Jim Walton. It has also been carbon copied to 10 leaders representing various Catholic and Protestant faith organizations.

The broadcast and cable television networks need to report the current, unprecedented assault against freedom of religion in this country, as well as the millions of Americans who would be left out in the cold by the Obama administration if it does not rescind HHS’s recently issued insurance mandate requiring contraceptive coverage.  As our statistics and analysis below outline, they are not, and it’s a glaring double standard.

On Sunday, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat highlighted the blunt favoritism shown by the media toward Planned Parenthood in last week’s headline-making spat with the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation, the breast cancer charity, after it announced it would no longer fund the prominent abortion provider: “The Media’s Abortion Blinders.”

Douthat compared the popularity of the pro-life position among Americans with the unanimous hostility the media unleashed on Komen, and the universal respect accorded Planned Parenthood: “... on the abortion issue, the press’s prejudices are often absolute, its biases blatant and its blinders impenetrable.”

On Sunday's Chris Matthews Show, after panel member Richard Stengel of Time magazine argued that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is an example of a wealthy President who connected with average Americans more effectively than GOP presidential candidate Mitt Rommney does, NBC Andrea Mitchell praised New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg for donating $250,000 to Planned Parenthood, arguing that it helped him "connect to people" in his "constituency." After an anecdote from Stengel about Roosevelt, Mitchell injected:

On Saturday's Fox News Watch, regular panel member Jim Pinkerton of The American Conservative magazine cited an article by MRC analyst and NewsBuster Matthew Balan, who recounted the media obsession with the Komen foundation's decision to eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood, while the same media have completely ignored the brewing conflict between President Obama and the Catholic Church as the Obama administration tries to force Catholic employers to go against their religious beliefs and provide coverage for contraception in its health insurance plans. Pinkerton:

In his The Plum Line op-ed on page A19 today, the Washington Post's Greg Sargent saw the presence of "relatively conservative Democrats Mark Begich (Alaska) and Jon Tester (Mont.)" on a letter by Senate Democrats blasting the Komen Foundation for withdrawing grants to Planned Parenthood as "testament to how broad the opposition to this decision has become."

But a few keystrokes on a search engine reveal Sargent's journalistic and intellectual laziness. Both Begich and Tester drew 100% approval ratings for 2011 from NARAL Pro-Choice America. Both senators drew 100% approval ratings in the 2012 Planned Parenthood action guide. Tester has received endorsements from both NARAL and Planned Parenthood and, in a photo I've attached below the page break, is shown smiling widely in a photo taken at the 39th annual NARAL Dinner (via TheHill.com)  held on January 26. Tester is pictured with NARAL president Nancy Keenan (center) and MSNBC contributor Karen Finney (right).

News of the Komen Foundation's backpedaling regarding its grants to Planned Parenthood affiliates prompted liberal journalist Andrea Mitchell to do a victory lap on her 1 p.m. Eastern Andrea Mitchell Reports program today.

Mitchell began by noting that under "mounting pressure," Komen founder Nancy Brinker released an apology, an excerpt of which Mitchell read before interviewing pro-choice Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) by telephone about the development. [MP3 audio here; video follows page break]

Komen hasn't bent to political pressure from Planned Parenthood and its left-wing political allies - they've snapped like a toothpick. And according to our statistical analysis, pro-abortion ABC, CBS and NBC News have undoubtedly played a strategic role in this pressure.

Since Komen's first announcement only two days ago, these network morning and evening newscasts collectively have cited it more than 13 times. And not surprisingly, these reports overwhelmingly slammed Komen and sympathized with the abortion giant.

In her Metro section column today, Washington Post's Petula Dvorak complained that The Susan G. Komen Foundation was "the biggest bully on the playground this week" with the cancer charity's decision to end grants to Planned Parenthood.

But oddly enough, Dvorak's own paper, in a front-page story no less, reported numerous incidents which show that Komen itself is the victim of bullying as various groups are ending or threatening to end their relationship with Komen in retaliation:

It seems media outlets only care about reporting on Planned Parenthood when its funding is threatened. When that happens, the liberal press goes ballistic.

When cancer charity Susan G. Komen for the Cure cut funding to Planned Parenthood, the abortion mill reacted swiftly, with a press release that rallied its allies in the media to create a ruckus about losing more than $600,000 in funding. The liberal media echo chamber began ringing with howls of rage that the cancer charity would dare to say no to funding the abortion giant. Strangely, the three broadcast networks seemed to have difficulty locating Komen supporters to interview.

MSNBC has been mocked as MS-DNC and MS-LSD by conservative critics. But given the network's constant drum-beat against the Komen Foundation for its decision to cut off grants to Planned Parenthood affiliates, it might be sensible to rename the liberal cable outlet MS-D&C, after the abortion procedure.

Throughout live coverage this morning and early afternoon, MSNBC hosts turned to pro-choice politicians and Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards to rebuke the breast cancer charity for its decision. Finally, in the 1 p.m. hour, veteran journalist and breast cancer patient Andrea Mitchell interviewed Komen's founder, Ambassador Nancy Brinker. Yet that discussion turned out to be a hardball interview that was followed immediately afterwards by a softball chat with hard-left U.S. senators Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).

Since announcing that it would no longer provide funding to Planned Parenthood on Wednesday, the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation has been subject to a vicious smear campaign by the abortion provider, a campaign which NBC News has worked to advance over the past 48 hours.

At the top of Wednesday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams sounded the alarm: "Caught in the middle. Two of the biggest names in women's health, tonight in a bitter fight over money and it may be thousands of women who pay the biggest price." In a later tease of the upcoming report he made no secret of who he thought the villain of the story was: "A decision that's making a lot of women furious at the world's largest breast cancer organization. Why did it cut off funds for critical breast cancer screenings?"

New York Times reporters Gardiner Harris and Pam Belluck passed on the outrage of pro-choice groups to news that the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation, which fights breast cancer, is cutting financial support to Planned Parenthood in the wake of bad publicity and a congressional investigation. The Times reporters seemed pretty outraged about it themselves in Thursday's “Uproar as Breast Cancer Group Ends Partnership With Planned Parenthood.”

The Times helped push the story with two pro-Planned Parenthood images; a ridiculous-looking posed shot of three pro-abortion activists in Richmond, Va., trying a Twitter campaign to boycott Komen, and an anti-Komen satirical liberal greeting already making the rounds on the left side of the web. While the reporters found "conservative women" that supported Komen's move, there was no liberal label for Planned Parenthood acolytes, who were merely "prominent women’s groups, politicians and public health advocates."

Normally, when a leading charity cuts ties to a large non-profit organization, the news will not spark a media controversy. But when the Susan G. Komen Foundation severed financial ties to Planned Parenthood due to Congressional investigations into the organization, CNN hyped Planned Parenthood's cries of foul play and "bullying from the right."

Correspondent Mary Snow aired a pretty one-sided piece on Wednesday including statements from Planned Parenthood's president Cecile Richards, evidence supporting her claims of right-wing "bullying," and even vitriolic Facebook posts decrying the de-funding. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

The absurd media double standard in labeling Republicans - even moderate Republicans - as conservative while omitting the liberal label for Democrats was on display again Wednesday as CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes filed a report for the CBS Evening News recounting the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation's decision to cease funding for Planned Parenthood.

"Women's groups feud over abortion."

That's how Washington Post headline editors titled a brief AP story regarding the Susan G. Komen cancer charity opting to end its relationship with Planned Parenthood.  The four-paragraph AP item appeared in the February 1 page A3 national news digest.

Discussing the recall of two Pfizer brands of birth control pills on Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry pressed Dr. Keri Peterson on an "option" for women who "may be now vulnerable to being pregnant." Peterson offered this tip: "There are options....You're going to want to use condoms immediately...there are also over-the-counter termination kits available that you can take right away." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

As part of Obama-care “reform,” the administration is requiring religious organizations include free birth control in their employee insurance plans. Monday’s front-page story on the controversy by Denise Grady took the perspective of supporters of the rule change, which Catholics and others call an attack on religious freedom: “Ruling on Contraception Draws Battle Lines at Catholic Colleges.”

The jump-page photo featured Fordham law student Bridgette Dunlap (pictured right), who organized an off-campus clinic to provide birth control for students, and the story both began and concluded from her perspective, in defense of the change.

Emily Ramshaw’s New York Times report on new abortion regulations in Texas, “Required Delay Between Sonogram and Abortion Creates Logistical Issues,” made the national edition Sunday. In an odd twist for the liberal Times, Ramshaw lamented the plight of abortion clinics having to comply with regulations. And isn’t it ironic for the pro-regulation Times to criticize a “bureaucratic nightmare”?

Ramshaw is a reporter for the Texas Tribune, a left-leaning nonprofit news organization based in Austin that has a content partnership with the Times. Back on September 30, 2011 she filed “Few Bright Spots in Perry’s Health Care Record,” a negative piece on Texas governor Rick Perry, at the start of Perry's brief presidential campaign.

On the "Grapevine" section of Friday night's Special Report, Fox News anchor Bret Baier reported the MRC's findings on how the networks covered this year's "March for Life" -- or, to be more precise,  how they skipped it. Once again, ABC, CBS, and NBC aired nothing on the thousands and thousands of pro-life protesters marching to the Supreme Court on the 39th anniversary of the high court legalizing abortion.

"If you were listening to the Big Three broadcast networks, you wouldn’t have heard a peep about the event," said Baier. "You would have been in the dark, too, if you were reading the print version of The New York Times. Not one word." Fox asked me for a quote which then appeared on screen: (Video below)

Liberals love substituting the word "choice" for abortion in their futile attempt to render it bloodless.

Liberals despise when those they consider allies "choose" to reconsider their enthusiasm for abortion. (video clip after page break)