{"id":104476,"date":"2013-04-30T12:00:27","date_gmt":"2013-04-30T16:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/?p=104476"},"modified":"2013-04-30T16:39:14","modified_gmt":"2013-04-30T20:39:14","slug":"breaking-the-silence-on-abortion-doctors-like-gosnell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2013\/04\/breaking-the-silence-on-abortion-doctors-like-gosnell\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking the silence on abortion doctors like Gosnell"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Sometimes other people do such fine GetReligion-esque media criticism that we just like to point at it and then walk away. <\/p>\n

So that\u2019s precisely what I\u2019m going to do with Melinda Henneberger\u2019s piece \u201cAre there more abortion doctors like Kermit Gosnell? And do we want to know?<\/a>\u201d that ran online at the Washington Post<\/em>. What I like about her criticism is that she puts the best construction on what her journalistic colleagues are doing while also asking hard questions \u2014 she combines nice and tough to great effect.<\/p>\n

She begins by noting some of the revelations in the new undercover videos released by pro-life activists this week. (Quick note: you know that the Gosnell media scandal changed media coverage even slightly since these videos received some coverage here<\/a> and here<\/a>.) Then she wonders why the National Abortion Federation didn\u2019t report some of what it found when it inspected Kermit Gosnell\u2019s unsanitary clinic (\u201cIf what she observed \u2014 a padlock on an emergency exit in a part of the clinic where women were left alone overnight, for example \u2014 was so far outside the norm, then why didn\u2019t it inspire a single phone call to the state, according to the grand jury report?\u201d).<\/p>\n

She criticizes media coverage of abortion clinics:<\/p>\n

Other such<\/a> criminal clinics<\/a> have only made the news as local stories, while most mainstream abortion coverage details threats to abortion rights rather than to women themselves.<\/p>\n

Even when a New York woman died<\/a> after a third-trimester abortion performed in Maryland in February, the coverage<\/a> questioned not the care that led to her death, but the breach of privacy she suffered when antiabortion activists publicized the case.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Henneberger notes that there is an egregious double standard:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

There is certainly no shortage of outraged attention to the \u201cpersonhood<\/a>\u201d movement, which would define life from the moment of conception as worthy of protection under the law. I don\u2019t know how such a law might be enforced without the kind of humiliating monitoring China used to uphold its one-child policy, and the proof that it\u2019s opposed even by most Americans who consider themselves pro-life is that it can\u2019t even pass in Mississippi.<\/p>\n

But where\u2019s the coverage of extreme views at the other end of the spectrum? Of, for instance, the jaw-dropping testimony of Planned Parenthood official Alisa LaPolt Snow? <\/a>When asked by a Florida lawmaker what kind of medical care the organization thinks a child who somehow survives a late-term abortion should get, Snow suggested that even then, the child\u2019s fate is a woman\u2019s right to choose.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how our president voted<\/a> as an Illinois state senator, too, even after his stated concerns about the \u201cborn alive\u201d bill were addressed. Though there is a lot of room for disagreement on when life does begin, most of us think viability is a pretty clear, bright line.<\/p>\n

Not Planned Parenthood<\/a>, though, which hasn\u2019t disavowed anything Snow said. And not the Bronx counselor caught on tape, who warns the woman sitting in front of her that no matter what happens, she mustn\u2019t go to the hospital, where if she were to give birth to a live child, that baby might be given medical care.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s great that the Post<\/em> allows opinions such as these online. But it\u2019s time for the news coverage to improve and ask tough questions as well. These issues are far too important to be left to the opinion pages.<\/p>\n

These news stories about abortion clinics could be hooked to some of what the pro-life activists found or they could be less related. For instance, after I wrote on the Gosnell coverage, an anesthesiologist wrote to me wrote to me, wondering why the news never shows what happens in an abortion the same way news shows look at other surgeries. It is fascinating that at a time when we can see into the womb better than ever before, there\u2019s a veil over that one particular procedure. And such an important procedure.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes other people do such fine GetReligion-esque media criticism that we just like to point at it and then walk away. So that\u2019s precisely what I\u2019m going to do with Melinda Henneberger\u2019s piece \u201cAre there more abortion doctors like Kermit Gosnell? And do we want to know?\u201d that ran online at the Washington Post. What […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":605,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3,4,1,5],"tags":[91,1482,1486,1487,1208,525,1483,1484,1485,244,1366,215],"class_list":["post-104476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","category-politics","category-social-issues","category-uncategorized","category-webtech","tag-abortion","tag-abortion-doctors","tag-alisa-lapolt-snow","tag-born-alive-infant-protection-act","tag-kermit-gosnell","tag-media-bias","tag-melinda-henneberger","tag-national-abortion-federation","tag-personhood","tag-planned-parenthood","tag-president-obama","tag-washington-post"],"yoast_head":"\nBreaking the silence on abortion doctors like Gosnell<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sometimes other people do such fine GetReligion-esque media criticism that we just like to point at it and then walk away. 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