Amanpour & Co., which airs on tax-funded PBS after running on CNN International, promoted an abortion-supporting documentary produced by a correspondent for the far-left Independent (UK) newspaper.
Guest host Bianna Golodryga talked to Bel Trew, who produced the abortion documentary The A-Word, and is also chief international correspondent for The Independent.
Bianna Golodryga: ….the stark realities of post-Roe America are now being felt. In Texas, the biggest of the red states, an investigation found a dramatic rise in pregnant women dying after the state's abortion ban went into effect. And across the U.S., infant mortality increased in the months following the Dobbs decision. Well now a new documentary takes an unflinching look at the lives impacted….
Trew found abortion “integral to maternal health care.” Seriously?
Bel Trew, chief international correspondent, The Independent: As you said, ahead of the elections, we really thought this is going to be one of the defining voter issues, that it might actually flip certain states. And as I was looking into this, I looked at many different subjects to explore, but the abortion bans was one that had just happened comparatively recently. And as I was doing some digging, I realized just how much it was impacting everything across the board.
I think I started the journey with a certain level of naivete. I sort of thought about it in a particular iteration of abortion. What I learned along the way is that it's integral to maternal health care, that it was impacting healthcare deserts in America, that women -- pregnant women -- were dying, the early infant mortality rates were rising, and ultimately, this had become a hugely divisive and important issue as we were leading up to the elections….
After talking about abortion employees taking security measures, they discussed one extremely hard case, that of Nicole Blackmon, whose fetus developed with a lethal anomaly but was denied an abortion, Golodryga got personal and emotional, treating the hard case as representative of the plight of women in the USA post-Dobbs.
Golodryga: That was so difficult to watch, Bel, and especially knowing that Nicole had already faced another tragedy in her life, having lost her young son due to gun violence just in 2023, 2024 in America, of all places in the world where a woman is forced to deliver a stillborn fetus that is known to not be viable. What was that like for you to be sitting there with these women as they were telling you these heartbreaking stories?
Later, she admitted her fellow journalists had covered the abortion bills and new laws in the various states that limit abortion as “draconian.”
Golodryga: And as these bills were even being debated and legislated before they were passed, some of these questions had been raised, we covered them as journalists, about how draconian they were, about what would impact the life of a mother, rape, incest, an unviable fetus, all of these scenarios, real-life scenarios that medical experts said do exist and will exist if these laws are passed….
The host concluded:
Golodryga: I just commend you for taking the time to make this film and for the brave women who spoke with you.
(Not exactly the “strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature” required by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967.)
One doesn’t have to watch the 44-minute A-Word documentary to suspect that it’s ideological hackwork, as shown by how the Independent is promoting it: “On June 24, 2022, nine justices voted on a decision. A decision that wound back the clock more than half a century.”
