Update: A spokeswoman at the Mississippi Department of Health informed NewsBusters she'd "never ever" heard the term "TRAP" used inside the department to describe the state's laws and regulations governing the practice of abortion in the state.
Reporting on how pro-life advocates have been fighting state-by-state legislative and regulatory battles to curb abortion, the Washington Post's Peter Slevin today did the abortion-on-demand lobby a favor by passing along a loaded term it likes to use to discredit laws aimed at reducing abortion by placing regulatory speed bumps on the road to the procedure (emphasis mine):
"We tried every which way, and we were successful in the state way," said Terri Herring, head of Mississippi's Pro-Life America Network. She calls ever-stricter regulations a matter of common sense and creative strategy.
"All-or-nothing means nothing," Herring said. "Incremental means something."
What it means in Mississippi, one of the most restrictive states in the country and a model for antiabortion forces elsewhere, is that a woman seeking an abortion must go twice to the clinic, at least 24 hours apart. A girl younger than 18 requires the consent of both parents or a judge's signature. Public money is available for very few abortions.
Such rules are known as TRAP laws, for Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers.
Slevin then turned to a Planned Parenthood rep to denounce such laws, without noting that it is other pro-choice lobby groups -- like the National Abortion Federation, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and NARAL Pro-Choice America -- not the "restrictive" state of Mississippi which labels laws and regulations governing abortion providers by the loaded acronym TRAP.
By failing to note that it is the pro-choice lobby that renders abortion restrictions as a "TRAP", readers may believe that states themselves use the term and/or that the term is universally accepted by pro-lifers, pro-choice lobbies, and regulators alike.
