What follows is not meant in any way to make light of a literally life-and-death issue. It is instead meant to perhaps (we can always hope) drill a little truth into the thick heads of the establishment media's alleged "journalists" who continue to refuse to see what's right in front of them in ObamaCare (or in many cases to even read the legislation in the first place).
You see, abortion coverage in ObamaCare is analogous to the pasta afficionado's expected set of ingredients in Prego Spaghetti Sauce, as presented in this popular 1984 commercial -- that is, "It's in there."
On Sunday, in an alleged "Fact Check" piece on ObamaCare, the Associated Press tried to pretend abortion coverage isn't in there. Two days later, prodded by Steven Ertelt at LifeNews.com and others in the pro-life community, the wire service specifically backtracked and admitted that yes, it's in there ("Gov't insurance would allow coverage for abortion").
Now it's Stephanie Condon of CBS who is pretending that abortion coverage is not in there in ObamaCare. LifeNews.com and pro-lifers are once again out there pushing back, while deliciously reminding the network of a 2004 story that wasn't all there -- or was only there in the vivid, anchor-ending imagination of Dan Rather (link to CBS story within excerpt added by me; bold is mine):
CBS News has become the latest mainstream media outlet to come under criticism from pro-life advocates for covering up the abortion funding tucked away in the government-run health care plan. The Associated Press had covered up the abortion funding but recently flip-flopped and admitted it exists.
In a Thursday news article posted on its web site titled "10 Health Care Reform Myths," CBS News lists number five as "Health Care Legislation Mandates Taxpayer Dollars Pay for Abortions."
"Nothing in the legislation, however, has 'mandated' that abortion services be included in the benefits package," CBS News claims.
CBS News contends the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved an amendment by pro-abortion Rep. Lois Capps, a California Democrat, "that would prohibit taxpayer dollars from funding abortions."
..... The "factcheck" concludes by saying that Congress "has yet to determine" how the abortion funding issues will be resolved.
Referring to the infamous Bush Air National Guard memos CBS published that later turned out to be fake, Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee says the new factsheet "demonstrates that their analytic and forensic skills have not improved much since that episode."
Johnson tells LifeNews.com that CBS News' analysis of the Capps amendment is off base.
..... "In reality, under the Capps Amendment, the federal government would run a nationwide insurance plan that would cover abortion on demand," he explained. "Abortionists would perform elective abortions on government-insured clients, send the bill to the government plan, and get checks from the government to pay for the abortions."
This surreal and contradictory sentence is in Ms. Condon's report:
It (ObamaCare) requires at least one plan from the federal health insurance exchange in each region of the country to cover abortion, and at least one of the plans to not cover abortion.
So according to CBS and Ms. Condon, if you stir in a abortion coverage ingredient in the left section of the pot, and put in an abortion-free ingredient in the right section of the same pot, and then mix it all up, voila! -- suddenly it's not in there. Give me a break.
Maybe the I-see-nothings at CBS should ask the Associated Press why eating crow wouldn't be such a bad thing (though even AP has never formally corrected its original "Fact Check" story). While not pleasant, chowing down on blackbird pie is still preferable to losing whatever shred of credibility one still might have. Because if the network doesn't pull back, its credibility on anything relating to ObamaCare is one thing that will definitely not be in there.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
