Time and time again, we are called upon to respond to a question average Americans ask: “Why doesn’t the media—conservative or liberal—show a picture of an aborted baby when they discuss abortion on the news?” (My opinion is that they ask either because they do not understand why the conflict exists between pro-life and pro-death forces or because they have never heard of, thought about or seen the reality of abortion.)
I tell them that the biggest reason for the absence of documented pictures of aborted children is that the media does not want the public to see who dies during an abortion, or describe who dies during human embryonic stem cell research experiments, or discuss who suffers because he or she has facilitated an abortion. I go on to explain that there are as many reasons why the pictures and the facts remain unobserved as there are reporters. The bottom line is that orchestrated ignorance is best for the culture of death, and so the truth is simply not reported.
It might also be the case that abortion makes journalists uncomfortable, because somewhere in their past there is an abortion, or a child conceived inconveniently and ignored in the same way one might avoid admitting that his socks don’t match. Who knows?
What we do know, however, is that this ongoing rejection of the facts is killing people, numbing consciences and generally creating misery everywhere. There has been quite a bit of information in the alternative media recently, for example, that is astounding, frightening and yet unreported by major national news sources.
How many national news outlets discussed even one of the following reports?
1. A Las Vegas abortion mill has been ordered to stop “performing surgeries without a license” because inspectors said they found medical equipment, medications and literature in a place where alleged abortions are being done. This is a place where women and children’s lives were put at risk … many lives I might add … and nary a national note of alarm was sounded. But if a single imprisoned terrorist had been “abused,” nobody with a national reporting platform would have ignored the allegations, whether true or false, for a minute.
2. A new study has shown that women who have an abortion could be risking the health of their next baby. Those who “terminate a pregnancy” are subsequently more likely to deliver their next child prematurely, thus placing the premature baby at greater risk for lung disease, cerebral palsy, blindness or deafness.
While some physicians are claiming that this is debatable, the fact is major media outlets have not addressed it. If the subject had been whether or not a certain form of heart surgery resulted in a higher risk of death, every outlet in America would have been on top of the story, pointing accusatory fingers and possibly destroying medical careers in the process.
3. Dr. Priscilla Coleman, an associate professor at Bowling Green State University, has completed an analysis of various studies exposing the effects of abortion on subsequent parenting. Her paper describes a number of ways that a previous abortion can affect a woman's relationship with her living children:
– Increased depression and anxiety. Abortion has been linked to higher rates of maternal depression and anxiety before and after birth, which may affect the woman's relationship with her children. In addition, depression is a common predictor for child abuse.
– Sleep disorders and disturbances. Women who have had an abortion are more likely to experience sleep disorders compared to women who carry to term, and one survey found that many women attributed the sleep disorders to a past abortion. These sleep disturbances "could render the high energy demands of parenting more complicated," says Coleman.
– Substance abuse. Studies have found that women who had an abortion were more likely to engage in substance abuse, and also more likely to smoke or use drugs or alcohol while pregnant. Mothers who abuse drugs or alcohol are more likely to "engage in authoritarian and punitive parenting practices," and parental substance abuse increases the risk that the children will suffer abuse or neglect.
– Child abuse. Abortion has been associated with lower emotional support for one's children and with a higher risk of child abuse and neglect.
Abortion has also been linked to higher rates of suicide and to a wide range of mental health disorders. Coleman was also the lead author of a study published in The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, which found that the children of women who had abortions have less supportive home environments and more behavioral problems than children of women without a history of abortion.
These findings are alarming and deserve to be reported. Yet the media remains silent. The sad fact is that if Dr. Coleman had been studying the possible harmful effects on living children whose parents smoke and drink, the press would have been flooded with reports, health warnings and possibly a federal study. Not so when the subject addressed is the harmful effects of abortion.
Remember, I asked you, how many national news outlets discussed even one of the reports I just noted? The answer is none.
On the other side of the coin, the media takes a completely different tack when covering the pro-abort Obama administration. For example, the Washington Post’s coverage of President Barack Obama schmoozing Catholics with all kinds of rhetorical assurances—just before attending the G-8 summit and meeting with Pope Benedict XVI—makes me ill.
The Post reports that Obama “still favors a robust federal policy protecting health-care workers who have moral objections to performing some procedures” and he is a “believer in conscience clauses.” However, the contrary is possibly what will happen. We all know how frequently the president can change his mind or alter his words to suit his audience. Just look at the federal debt!
And it does not take a Harvard graduate to figure out that someone as committed to abortion as Obama’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, could also arbitrarily change the rules. With Sebelius overseeing how conscience is protected and for whom such protection is provided, it’s hard to say what could happen.
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, who appears to be as concerned about Sebelius as we are, wrote this about her when it comes to abortion: "It would be naive to assume, unless there is an explicit prohibition in the [Obama Health Insurance] bill, that [HHS] Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will not use her discretion to fund abortions with taxpayers' money."
The news media’s double standard boggles the mind!
On one end of the spectrum, we confront mothers who have aborted their children and experienced all kinds of tragic consequences; yet nobody says a word or makes even the slightest suggestion that there is anything wrong with that “safe and legal” procedure known as abortion. Forget about the truth, the pictures of dead children and images of the maimed mothers of those dead children.
On the other end, we find the very same media fawning over a president who, as his record makes abundantly clear, has done all he can to advance the agenda of the culture of death, while at the same time giving assurance after assurance that he really wants nothing more than to make abortion rare!
“Fair and balanced” news coverage it is not. The sad fact is that human beings are suffering and dying as the cheerleaders for Obama move forward with nary a thought about whether they should bear any of the responsibility for the tragedy that is being left in their arrogant wake.