Just for the fun of it, let’s pretend that Reuters is a student in a Journalism 101 course and not an international wire service that touts its dedication to upholding “freedom from bias in the gathering and dissemination of information and news.”

Let’s pretend that this beginning student turned in a story on a study concerning abortion and conscience laws.

Let’s pretend that the story — reporting only one side of a controversial issue — came from the student and not Reuters.

What might we tell the student?

Well, first let’s check out the lede:

(Reuters Health) - The vast majority of U.S. states have passed laws blocking civil lawsuits that might result from a doctor refusing to perform an abortion or certain other medical procedures because of religious beliefs, a new study shows.
The national survey found that 46 states had laws protecting medical professionals and institutions from being sued for harm to patients related to a refusal to provide services out of conscience, researchers report in JAMA.

Not bad.

Not bad at all.

But then the story quotes a source who will interpret the news above:

“The biggest takeaway from this research is that while people are aware that conscience laws may impact a woman’s right to access reproductive services, they may not know that these laws also may impact access to the legal system when they are injured as a result of conscientious refusal,” said the study’s author, Nadia Sawicki, Georgia Reithal Professor of Law at the Loyola University Chicago School of Law.
“The majority of patients have no idea whether their local hospital is religiously affiliated,” Sawicki said. “So they don’t know if there are providers who can’t provide services. I hope this research brings to light the very real impact that conscience laws have not just on access to care but also on the right to legal recovery in cases where the patient is injured.”

Let's face it. The religion-news beat is amazing. I have never understood how many journalists consider this a fringe topic that doesn't deserve mainstream coverage.

Decades ago, I interviewed scores of newspaper editors for my graduate project at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and you want to know the two most common reasons they gave for avoiding religion? Religion was (a) boring and (b) too controversial. That's the problem, you see, the world is just full of boring, controversial religion stories.

I think any professional who works on this beat for multiple decades -- which describes all the current GetReligionistas -- lives in a state of amazement at how complex new stories, and new angles on old stories, just keep showing up.

That's how I felt reading a very interesting New York Times feature about the struggle to promote hospice in African-American churches. Once again, it is amazing what the Times can do when a religion topic doesn't touch on the Sexual Revolution and, thus, clash with the core doctrines of Kellerism. Here is the key summary material near the top of this fine story, which opens with tragic events in the lives of the Rev. Vernal Harris and his wife Narseary, who have lost two sons to sickle cell anemia:

Hospice use has been growing fast in the United States as more people choose to avoid futile, often painful medical treatments in favor of palliative care and dying at home surrounded by loved ones. But the Harrises, who are African-American, belong to a demographic group that has long resisted the concept and whose suspicions remain deep-seated.

It is an attitude borne out by recent federal statistics showing that nearly half of white Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in hospice before death, compared with only a third of black patients. The racial divide is even more pronounced when it comes to advance care directives -- legal documents meant to help families make life-or-death decisions that reflect a patient’s choices. Some 40 percent of whites aged 70 and over have such plans, compared with only 16 percent of blacks.

Let's make an honest attempt to help Reuters with its biased, one-sided story on abortion and conscience

Few gaps in fine New York Times look at hospice and common fears among African-Americans