On Monday and again on Friday, the NBC Nightly News composed “news” stories channeling the pro-abortion message of the Center for Reproductive Rights, showcasing their plaintiffs against Republicans who would deny women “life-saving” abortions.
On Friday, NBC reporter Yamiche Alcindor told the story of Nicole Miller of Boise, Idaho, who started bleeding in her 20th week of pregnancy last fall and was flown to Utah, where her baby boy was aborted. Viewers were told she was a CRR plaintiff.
They also quoted a family physician Loren Colson, who said current pro-life laws put doctors in an "impossible situation." That's a nice match, since Colson has also appeared on a reproductive-rights panel with Biden's HHS Secretary and spoke at the "Frank Church Gala," the main fundraiser of the Idaho Democratic Party.
The pro-life Republican view only surfaced as uninformed and unsympathetic:
ALCINDOR: Earlier this year, Idaho attorney general Raul Labrador said that's not happening.
RAUL LABRADOR: It's really hard for me to conceive of a single incident where a woman has to be air-lifted out of Idaho to perform an abortion.
ALCINDOR: What do you think about that?
MILLER: I heard about that. Anger. Having an abortion that day saved my life.
On Monday's Nightly News, Lester Holt hyped the "devastating impact" of preventing abortions, like abortions don't devastate humans:
LESTER HOLT: It was almost two years ago today that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, clearing the way for states to impose new restrictions on abortion, including Texas, where Laura Jarrett spoke with five women who have faced a devastating impact.
Jarrett sat down with five women who are all CRR plaintiffs. "Recent data over the last two years showing more women forced to travel for care since Dobbs – women like Jessica Bernardo, one of a group of women who filed a lawsuit against the state last year, with the help of the Center for Reproductive Rights, alleging they were denied abortions in Texas."
At Jarrett's prompting, the quintet all raised their hands to predictable questions: "How many of you were told you could not receive an abortion because the baby still had a heartbeat?" All five raised their hands.
Then Jarrett asked: "How many of you are worried that someone is gonna die from these laws?" All give raised there hands, and Amanda Zurawski said "If they haven't already."
ironically predicted that many would die from Texas laws enacted to protect unborn children from abortion, "If they haven't already."
Before that exercise, Jarrett underlined that this pro-abortion message is a central focus of the Biden-Harris campaign: "Rallies across the country today as the Biden campaign tries to draw a direct line from Mr. Trump to Dobbs." Then, a clip of a campaign ad: "Decades of progress shattered just because the last guy got four years in the White House." Jarrett continued the DNC message: "Highlighting women denied abortions, releasing ads focused on their stories, and making it a central focus of the re-election campaign."
NBC raises the question: where does the advertising end and the "news" begin? This is Laura Jarrett, the daughter of longtime Obama chief of staff Valerie Jarrett. So NBC also blurs all the lines in who it hires to promote the Democrat themes.
Research assistance by Michael Wnek, including the transcript below:
NBC Nightly News
6/24/2024
06:39:30 PM EST
LESTER HOLT: It was almost two years ago today that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, clearing the way for states to impose new restrictions on abortion, including Texas, where Laura Jarrett spoke with five women who have faced a devastating impact.
[Cuts to video]
LAUREN MILLER: Pre-Dobbs, we were already in a pretty bad place in Texas.
LAURA JARRETT: The day Lauren Miller learned she was pregnant, she started a journal.
MILLER: I didn’t even know it was twins yet.
JARRETT: But at 12 weeks, she learned that one of the twins she was carrying had trisomy-18, a rare chromosomal condition making survival highly unlikely.
MILLER: You never think that your pregnancy journal is just gonna turn into a horror novel.
JARRETT: Because her fetus still had a heartbeat, she couldn't get an abortion under the law in Texas, and she's not alone.
How many of you were told you could not receive an abortion because the baby still had a heartbeat?
[Group raises their hands]
JARRETT: All of you?
Texas, like more than a dozen other states, moved swiftly to cut off abortion access after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, two years ago today, in the Dobbs decision. The high court saying then that it was returning the issue of abortion to the people's elected representatives. But what's happened in states since Dobbs, now a fierce fight heading into November.
[Cuts to video]
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Getting it back to the states puts the question where it belongs–with the vote of the people.
[Cuts back to report]
JARRETT: Former President Trump taking full credit for getting Roe overturned, but, more recently, also saying he believes in exceptions in cases of rape, incest, and to save a mother's life.
[Cuts to video]
TRUMP: You have to go with your heart. But you have to also remember you have to get elected.
[Cuts back to report]
JARRETT: Rallies across the country today as the Biden campaign tries to draw a direct line from Mr. Trump to Dobbs.
[Cuts to campaign ad]
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Decades of progress shattered just because the last guy got four years in the White House.
[Cuts back to report]
JARRETT: Highlighting women denied abortions, releasing ads focused on their stories, and making it a central focus of the re-election campaign. The Vice President addressing a crowd today.
[Cuts to video]
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: In the case of the stealing of reproductive freedom from the women of America, Donald Trump is guilty.
[Cuts back to report]
JARRETT: Recent data over the last two years showing more women forced to travel for care since Dobbs–women like Jessica Bernardo, one of a group of women who filed a lawsuit against the state last year, with the help of the Center for Reproductive Rights, alleging they were denied abortions in Texas. Five of them sat down exclusively with Nightly News.
JESSICA BERNARDO: I didn't want to wait for having a seizure or heart or renal failure. [Transition] There’s no coming out–back from that. [Transition] It was just infuriating.
MILLER: We're not here sounding an alarm about hypothetical scenarios. We're sounding the alarm about what is already happening and what has happened to us.
JARRETT: But not everyone has been able to travel. Samantha Casiano learned at her 20-week scan that her baby had anencephaly and would not survive, but could not afford to leave Texas for an abortion.
SAMANTHA CASIANO: It was hard and traumatizing.
JARRETT: Her baby living only four hours after birth.
CASIANO: Knowing that your child is gonna die and planning your child's funeral before your child's even here is insane.
JARRETT: Amanda Zurawski had the resources to travel, but says she became too sick too fast to leave Texas in time.
AMANDA ZURAWSKI: I didn't even have that option because my doctors told me “You better not be more than 15 minutes away from a hospital.” I have to use a surrogate now because of what happened to me. The damage to my reproductive organs is permanent.
JARRETT: The group recently lost their lawsuit to clarify who qualifies for a medical exemption under Texas’ abortion ban and now fear what's still to come.
How many of you are worried that someone is gonna die from these laws?
[Group raises their hands]
ZURAWSKI: If they haven't already.
MILLER: Yeah.
CASIANO: Yeah.
[Cuts back to live]
HOLT: And Laura, any day now, the Supreme Court is expected to rule on another major abortion case.
JARRETT: Yes, Lester, that right–that's right. It's a dispute about whether hospitals that receive federal funding must perform abortions in medical emergencies even in states where abortion is banned right now. And a decision in that case is expected by the end of this week or early next, Lester.
HOLT: Alright. Laura Jarrett, thank you.
