A Classic Labeling Imbalance: In Oregon Case, "Patients" vs. "Conservatives"

MRC's Mike Rule reports that CBS's "Early Show" had a typical breakdown of the debate over Oregon's assisted-suicide law. It's "patients" vs. "conservatives."

As Wyatt Andrews reported: "The ruling legalizes the right of terminally ill Oregon/>/> patients, patients like Jack Newbold, to end their lives when they choose with a doctor prescribed dose of barbiturates. Newbold died of his bone cancer but felt that his lethal prescription gave him power to the end...(Followed by old Newbold soundbite)...Patient groups in Oregon/> cheered the decision, and they predicted that other states will pass laws like Oregon/>/>'s. Conservatives, however, will ask Congress to ban assisted suicide." (Introducting a soundbite from pro-life lawyer James Bopp.)

In this case, you have to ask: so are conservatives somehow anti-patient groups? This pattern only provides the latest example of my little labeling-bias maxim: To the liberal media, the epic political battles of our time are fought between the conservatives and the nonpartisans.