Former “journalist” Kate Smith did such a good job pushing the pro-choice narrative while on her abortion beat at CBS News that last month Planned Parenthood hired her to be their director of “news content” (aka propagandist). And on Mother’s Day Sunday, she appeared on CNN’s Reliable Sources to erroneously claim that the United States was going to become exactly like El Salvador and put women in prison for having miscarriages. She also lashed out at conservatives for criticizing the promotion in her career track.
After some easy questions about why she left CBS (she claimed her editor was no longer interested in her beat) and what she does now for the nation’s largest baby-killing operation, Stelter brought up the criticism from conservatives by citing a National Review article (from over 2 years ago) calling her “Planned Parenthood’s Ambassador to CBS News.”
Smith dismissed the national magazine as just an online blog and suggested long-time journalist reporter Alexandra DeSanctis Marr simply doesn’t “realize all of the different layers that someone goes through before they publish a piece before they go on-air.”
“We have standards, we have lawyers,” Smith declared. “Before anything goes on-air, there's a thorough review of what's going on. So, I stand by every article I write.” She doubled down and suggested those criticizing her were just ignorant. “Again, I think these people just don’t understand how newsrooms actually work, they don't have that kind of experience.”
Smith might not realize that she spent time at the same network that gave us the scourge of Dan Rather and his fraudulent documents against former President George W. Bush.
Completely missing the fact that what was about to happen would prove the critics correct, Stelter asked Smith to look back at her former reporting to explain how the United States was going to become an anti-abortion hellscape like El Salvador (just like Planned Parenthood claims).
“When we went to El Salvador, what we saw is all of those things that these doctors and politicians had warned us about were happening real-time on the ground,” she declared.
Ignoring the fact that all state abortion bans include an exception for the life of the mother, Smith hinted that women would be dying in the U.S. en masse:
I spoke to a doctor who, in no uncertain terms, told me he has had patients die – has had patients die – because he wasn't allowed to give them an abortion that would have saved their life. We saw – We met with a doctor who is giving abortions illegally and he was saying there's been absolutely no difference in demand for abortions, whether it's legal or not. There's no difference.
And ignoring how the justice system in the U.S. is superior to that of El Salvador, Smith speculated that American women would be getting sent to prison for having miscarriages:
And then most… really like keeps me up at night is when I spoke to the women who were in prison for having an abortion and there were some in there who had not seen their family in years because this prison is in such a dangerous place that their family can't visit. And they say they had a miscarriage, and they woke up – they had an obstetric emergency – and they wake up and they're shackled to the hospital bed and there's a police officer in there investigating them.
And I can tell you the doctors told me when they're looking at a patient, there is no way for them to tell the difference between an induced abortion and spontaneous miscarriage. You can't tell the difference. That is a medical fact.
“This isn't a theory. We don't need to speculate. We have actual facts that can inform what happens,” she asserted to Stelter, who refused to push back.
For what it’s worth, before speaking with Smith, Stelter did have Montse Alvarado of the Catholic EWTN to talk about covering abortion through that Catholic and pro-life lens. He was more curious than critical of her.
This promotion of a fictional account of what would supposedly transpire in America was made possible because of lucrative sponsorships from Fidelity and Arby’s. Their contact information is linked.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
CNN’s Reliable Sources
May 8, 2022
11:2624 a.m. Eastern(…)
BRIAN STELTER: Last year though, National Review, the conservative outlet, called you – two years ago, Planned Parenthood's ambassador to CBS. They said you were posing as a reporter and constructing articles that more closely resembles press releases than news. So, that was the charge when you were at CBS and now you're at Planned Parenthood. How do you react to the conservatives who said you were biased in your CBS coverage?
KATE SMITH (former CBS, now Planned Parenthood news content director): Look, if you're a blogger online you might not realize all of the different layers that someone goes through before they publish a piece before they go on-air. We have standards, we have lawyers. Before anything goes on-air, there's a thorough review of what's going on. So, I stand by every article I write.
And I would say making that accusation, you're playing into the right. Anybody who doesn't fall by their rules, who isn’t anti-abortion, is against them. So, if you're trying to cover this from a neutral point of view and you’re including both sides, they automatically think you are against them because they view doctors as anti – excuse me, for abortion. And they view them as biased, even though these are doctors we're talking about.
So, I really reject all that criticism. Again, I think these people just don’t understand how newsrooms actually work, they don't have that kind of experience. But yeah, completely reject that criticism.
STELTER: While at CBS, I mentioned your trip to El Salvador. What have you learned there and how does it relate to the U.S. now?
SMITH: Yeah. That reporting trip to El Salvador was really eye-opening and it really helped me put together the pieces of what I was seeing on the ground happening. And at the time, the reporting trip was in 2019, so none of these six-week abortion bans, the really extreme ones that you see had gone into place yet. And we were only hearing from doctors and politicians about what might happen if an abortion ban were to go into effect.
When we went to El Salvador, what we saw is all of those things that these doctors and politicians had warned us about were happening real-time on the ground.
I spoke to a doctor who, in no uncertain terms, told me he has had patients die – has had patients die – because he wasn't allowed to give them an abortion that would have saved their life. We saw – We met with a doctor who is giving abortions illegally and he was saying there's been absolutely no difference in demand for abortions, whether it's legal or not. There's no difference.
And then most… really like keeps me up at night is when I spoke to the women who were in prison for having an abortion and there were some in there who had not seen their family in years because this prison is in such a dangerous place that their family can't visit. And they say they had a miscarriage, and they woke up – they had an obstetric emergency – and they wake up and they're shackled to the hospital bed and there's a police officer in there investigating them.
And I can tell you the doctors told me when they're looking at a patient, there is no way for them to tell the difference between an induced abortion and spontaneous miscarriage. You can't tell the difference. That is a medical fact.
And so, it's just up to a judge to decide. And these people were saying they were innocent. And as a proof point, many of those patients – excuse me, many of those women who were in prison, they have since been released because there wasn't enough evidence to put them in prison.
So again, all of these things that we say might happen if abortion gets banned or if abortion becomes illegal, they do happen. This isn't a theory. We don't need to speculate. We have actual facts that can inform what happens.
STELTER: Kate, thank you very much.
