In the wake of Sandy Hook, to justify openly pressuring Congress to restrict our Second Amendment gun rights, the national media frequently pointed to polls showing majority public support for laws that would broaden the scope of background checks. When this law failed to overcome a filibuster in the Senate, the media bellyached for weeks about the filibuster and the GOP “obstructionism” that thwarts the will of the people.
This is not a new kind of media attack against the political right. Ever since Obama assumed the presidency, under the guise of reporting, the media have attacked our “do nothing” congress as dysfunctional and incapable of accomplishing anything. According to the media, a legislative body “doing nothing” is a huge problem. As the media push to see millions of Democrats legalized through immigration reform, look for this media narrative to explode at the GOP Congress.
But in reality, we all know that this is wild hypocrisy and that our media see some obstructionists who thwart the will of the people as a lot more equal than others.
Take for instance, State Senator Wendy Davis, the Texas Democrat who is now a full-fledged national Media Dahling after her 11-hour filibuster managed to block the Texas Senate from passing laws that would have outlawed abortion after 20 weeks and made abortion clinics safer.
As I write this, Davis is being hailed all across the national news as a courageous, principled, instant superstar. ABC News, CBS News, The Washington Post… all hailed her obstructionism. Left-wing cable news outlets — CNN and MSNBC — were just as gushing; as were the morning news shows.
Anyone familiar with our media knows what the Media Narrative is here — all about gender politics, “reproductive rights,” and any other buzzword that can be utilized to place Wendy Davis astride a white horse, and her political opponents grunting away in that Neanderthal cave known as Texas.
Naturally, though, most of the national media are ignoring any pertinent facts inconvenient to their agenda. Here are five of them:
1. The Texas Bill will Make Abortion Safer: After the horrors discovered at the clinic of abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell (which the media all-but ignored), many of which were only possible due to the local government’s politically motivated lack of oversight towards abortion clinics, Texas decided to act to make abortion safer. One of the primary objectives of the bill Davis filibustered is to ensure that women who seek a legal abortion are properly cared for.
This is what is in the bill Davis obstructed, and what some in media are cynically and dishonestly portraying as a move to force abortion clinics to close:
In truth, clinics would close only if they failed to meet new safety standards that have been drawn in response to the horror stories in Philadelphia and Houston. The new rules, as summarized by the Texas Alliance for Life, would have “increase[d] abortion facility safety standards to the level of ambulatory surgical centers to shut down Gosnell-like abortion providers in Texas,” “require[d] the 18,000 RU-486 abortions performed each year be done according to FDA safety standards,” and “require[d] physicians who perform abortions to be qualified to treat life-threatening complications after botched abortions and have privileges at a local hospital.”
2. The American People Back the Ban: Davis obstructed the will of the American people who, by 48% to 44%, favor what’s in the Texas bill: a ban on abortions after 20 weeks. A full 80% want abortion banned after the second trimester.
3. A Majority of American Women Back the Ban: Davis also obstructed the will of American women, who support a ban on abortion after 20 weeks at a higher percentage than men, 50% to 44%.
4. A Huge Majority of Texans Back the Ban: Davis obstructed the will of Texans; almost two-thirds (62%) of whom favor this ban on abortion after 20 weeks.
5. Late-term Abortion Ban Is More Popular with Women than ObamaCare: Yep.
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We could add a number 6. Abortion is especially horrific after just a few weeks. Here is a fact the media never-ever report on, what the act of abortion really is:
At six weeks, the baby’s brain, spinal cord, and central nervous system are all pretty well formed — in outline at least. By the two-month mark, sensory organs begin to develop and bone replaces cartilage. …
At each of these stages, had the bill been passed, it would have remained legal in Texas to kill the child. The law that Wendy Davis and her fellow “pro-science” acolytes so bravely stood against would have rendered it illegal to kill the child after this point. And when I say kill, I mean kill. I mean break bones, rip apart limbs, crush skulls, drain fluids, still a beating heart, annihilate a brain that is capable of dreaming, and crush a nervous system. I mean: Kill.
Other than winning Barack Obama elections, nothing brings out our media’s bias, dishonesty, and hypocrisy like the issue of abortion.
My thanks to Charles W. Cooke over at National Review whose superb Tuesday editorial both inspired this post and made it possible.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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