To understand just how biased media coverage of abortion can be, check out this lede from Yahoo News:
Texas’ newly adopted amendments requiring the burial or cremation of fetal remains every time a woman has an abortion are set to take effect on Dec. 19.
Let's run that by again. Read this real slow, because we don't want to lose the shock value of what is being said there.
How utterly horrible.
A woman will have to bury or cremate the fetal remains "every time" she has an abortion.
Did Texas' backward officials not even consider a lesser statute -- such as one as allowing a woman to undergo an abortion or two before the burial rules kick in?
Of course, as one who believes in the sanctity of human life from the moment of conception, I see this from a different perspective than so many journalists -- for whom the ability to end a pregnancy is a sacred right (rite?) that must be protected at all costs.
The journalistic issue, in case it's not clear: The abortion battle is one with at least two sides. The American public remains highly divided on this issue, and there is evidence that young Americans, on this issue, are questioning the current national regime of abortion laws.
Thus, reporters and editors do their readers/viewers -- not to mention their profession itself -- disservice when they give only one side a voice. But that happens all too frequently, as the Texas case illustrates. (Good luck finding a pro-life source in the Yahoo story, for example.)
Longtime readers of GetReligion know, of course, that news stories heavily favoring the pro-choice side are a longstanding and indisputable problem. If you somehow missed it previously, check out the classic 1990 Los Angeles Times series -- written by the late David Shaw — that exposed rampant news media bias against abortion opponents. Go ahead and bookmark that, because it remains painfully relevant for people who run newsrooms.
Since President-elect Donald Trump's election, there has been a lot of navel-gazing at how the brash billionaire's victory caught the mainstream media so off guard. Some have pointed to Trump's promise to appoint U.S. Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationally.
But coverage by Yahoo and other major news organizations of the Texas fetal burial rules gives no indication that post-Trump journalists are willing to cover both sides of the abortion debate.
Like Yahoo, the New York Times, the Dallas Morning News and the Texas Tribune all reported the story this week with a breathless focus on activists upset over the new rules.
Does anybody — anybody at all — support the new rules? Say, a pro-life group? Sorry, journalists don't seem to care about what the anti-abortion side has to say.
If I missed a mainstream news report that actually covered the story in a balanced way and gave both sides a voice, please share the link in the comments section. Otherwise, we'll just assume that the mainstream press has no interest in — or intention to offer — fair coverage on this topic.
It's business as usual, in other words, for abortion-promoting journalists.