Abortion Clinics Are Burning, But No One Seems To Care
Nat'l Partnership of Women and Families
FEATURED BLOG
(copied in full. No paragraph breaks. But there's more info available at link below)
"Abortion Clinics Are Burning, But No One Seems To Care,"
Callie Beusman, Broadly: "[M]ost national media outlets didn't report on [recent] attacks" against abortion providers "and even fewer still connected them," Beusman writes, referring to recent incidents in California, Illinois and Washington state. She notes that NARAL Pro-Choice America is urging the Department of Justice to investigate such instances as domestic terrorism, but, citing the fallout of misleading videos targeting Planned Parenthood, she notes that any "outrage" over the issue seems to be "reserved for outlandish claims about harm done to fetuses." She writes that the claims made in the videos "were quickly and thoroughly picked apart," but conservative lawmakers nonetheless launched efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, clinic protests were reported "nationwide," and "abortion providers witnessed an escalation in hateful and intimidating rhetoric." Meanwhile, Beusman points to a Media Matters review that "found that 'cable news shows and leading newspapers around the country remained largely silent on arson attacks that targeted Planned Parenthood clinics following the release of'" the misleading videos. Further, she quotes David Cohen, author of "Living in the Crosshairs: The Untold Story of Anti-Abortion Terrorism," who noted that antiabortion-rights extremists "'are taking extreme, violent measures'" and that "'[t]his terrorism has been a regular part of anti-abortion extremism for decades.'" She writes, "The irony here is palpable, to say the least: Abortion providers are merely trying to help women access essential health care in full compliance with the law, whereas extreme opponents of abortion are resorting to violence, to intimidation, and to flat-out lying in order to advance their agenda" (Beusman, Broadly, 10/20).
http://go.nationalpartnership.org/site/News2?abbr=daily2_&page=NewsArticle&id=49045
