Someone was acting like PolitiFact at NBCNews.com. Reporter Adam Edelman -- whose beat seems to be promoting abortion measures by Democrats -- threw a "False" flag at Ohio Republican Bernie Moreno for making a fairly obvious observation about the latest pro-abortion ballot initiative there, "Issue 1":
Ohio Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno falsely claimed in a recent interview that Issue 1 — the ballot measure seeking to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution — would allow a rapist to “force” a woman to have an abortion.
The remark by Moreno, a businessman, is the latest from groups and individuals opposed to Issue 1 to mischaracterize the proposal by tying it to parental rights....
Earlier in the podcast, Moreno mischaracterized Issue 1 as being about "on-demand abortion, late-term abortion, stripping parental rights.”
Edelman sounded like PolitiFact by marshaling "nonpartisan experts" that you can expose as Democrats with a few search-engine clicks:
Nonpartisan legal experts say his remarks are rife with inaccuracies and falsehoods.
Tracy Thomas, director of the Center for Constitutional Law at the University of Akron Law School in Ohio, said there was "no conflict" between Issue 1 and existing minors' rights — "even when the amendment language is read broadly."
There's one problem for Mr. NBC. Tracy Thomas is demonstrably a Democrat. See her campaign donations: Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren. Calling her "nonpartisan" is Pants On Fire stuff. .
And that's not the only fake "nonpartisan expert" NBC's quoting.
“Opponents have latched on to the ‘but not limited to’ language to say that this could provide a constitutional right to, among other things, gender-affirming care rights. That’s not a legally persuasive argument,” Jonathan Entin, a constitutional law expert and professor emeritus at the Case Western Reserve School of Law in Cleveland, told NBC News earlier this year.
Nonpartisan? No. Here's more life on the D-List:
Take a look at the actual language of Issue One, and you can see it's quite easy to see it's for abortion rights for all "individuals," in any trimester, which would include 12-year-old girls.
A. Every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on:
1. contraception;
2. fertility treatment;
3. continuing one’s own pregnancy;
4. miscarriage care; and
5. abortion.
B. The State shall not, directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against either:
1. An individual's voluntary exercise of this right or
2. A person or entity that assists an individual exercising this right,
So how hard is it to argue this would enable 12-year-old girls with 21-year-old boyfriends (or even rapists) from "exercising this right"? There's no mention of parental consent. Edelman and his cast of "nonpartisans" underline that Ohio already has a parental-consent provision for "abortion care."
Edelman played games with quotes to find his "Even Republicans say" argument:
“In a legal analysis of the measure published last month, even Dave Yost, a Republican and the state’s attorney general, acknowledged that the measure “does not specifically address parental consent.””
But he left out the rest of Yost's paragraph! “However, the parental-consent statute would certainly be challenged on the basis that Issue 1 gives abortion rights to any pregnant “individual,” not just to a “woman.” Before Roe was reversed, parental consent laws were regularly challenged in courts. If Issue 1 passes, the question for a court will be whether the term “individual” includes a “minor.” There is no guarantee that Ohio’s parental-consent law will remain in effect.”
Unlike NBC, CNN accurately reported Yost's opinion: “Attorney General Dave Yost released a legal analysis of the amendment that argued it went 'further' than the protections in Roe and could overturn parental consent laws for minors seeking abortions.”
Edelman, like other "fact checkers," is trying to declare conservative spin as "false," just as they claimed you couldn't say in 1992 that Bill Clinton would raise taxes -- and he promptly did.
