"Holy Cross gets nod for new MoCo hospital: Women's advocates concerned."
That's how the Washington Post's online "On Faith" feature teased a Metro section front-pager in the paper's January 21 print edition.
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The story by staffer Lena Sun focused on complaints from a "coalition of advocacy groups" that the recent unanimous vote by Maryland state regulators green-lighting "the first new hospital in Montgomery County [Md.] in 30 years," raised concerns by "women's and religious groups" that the planned Catholic hospital would poorly serve women based on, you guessed it, Catholic teaching on abortion and birth control.
Sun noted critics complain of a lack of access to abortion services in Montgomery County, failing to note that abortionist LeRoy Carhart recently opened shop in the same town where Holy Cross's new hospital will be located, even though that was a story she herself filed at the time.
In the fourth paragraph, Sun noted the gripe of Catholics for Choice that the move by the Maryland Health Care Commission was "troubling."
In the tenth paragraph, Sun gratuitously quoted an "unidentified woman [who] told the commissioners, 'Thank you all for deciding women are not people.'"
Sun waited until four paragraphs later to quote a bland statement from Holy Cross hospital's president and chief executive about how Holy Cross was "the best choice to bring this much-needed expansion of health care to the residents of northern Montgomery County" and how "Our financing is in place for the new hospital."
The Post staffer failed to find a Catholic priest or lay Catholic to strongly take issue with the harsh invective posed by Sun's blandly-labeled "advocacy groups" or the aforementioned "unidentified woman."
