A lot of liberal media bias boils down to word choice and the loaded connotations they can bring in service of a liberal slant. The headline for a November 11 Baltimore Sun story about the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was no different.
"Bishop denounces U.S. abortion rights" read the loaded headline, which evokes in readers the sense of a stern cleric inveighing against a "woman's right to choose" rather than concerned clergy worried about the loss of life and trauma to pregnant mothers caused by abortion.
The article itself gave a more nuanced portrait than the stark headline announced, reporting that Francis Cardinal George expressed his concern in terms of the incoming Obama administration's record on "social justice" and "universal human rights":
BALTIMORE - The head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, opening a national church meeting yesterday, said that continued support for abortion rights will undermine any advances in social justice that come from a new president and Congress.
Chicago Cardinal Francis George said that "we must all rejoice" that an African-American will be in the White House for the first time in a country that "once enshrined slavery" in law.
But he said the nation still violates what he called universal human rights by keeping abortion legal. In a later news conference, George said bishops are preparing to lobby the next administration on any policies that diverge from Catholic teaching on marriage, abortion and other issues.
