MediaWatch: January 1998

Janet Cooke Award: Abortion: Not Available Enough

Journalists love anniversaries, and the 25th anniversary of the "landmark" Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion promised to be no exception — until the latest charges of adultery and perjury against the President broke. But ABC’s World News Tonight celebrated early, devoting half of its January 16 show to abortion. For presenting the concerns of abortion advocates to the almost total exclusion of the pro-life viewpoint, ABC earned the Janet Cooke Award.

The only story addressing pro-life concerns that evening came at the end from religion reporter Peggy Wehmeyer, who noted that Catholic women who’ve had abortions can seek forgiveness within the church through a program called Project Rachel. But even in that story, the network kept its focus on the woman who needs, wants, or had an abortion.

Politicians who seek to round the harsh edges of abortion call for them to be "safe, legal, and rare." But ABC’s coverage suggested more than a million abortions a year is not a tragedy, or even a social problem. A decline in abortions was scary, and a decline in abortion’s availability was a tragedy.

Peter Jennings began the series of reports: "We’re going to take a closer look at abortion tonight. It makes some people cringe, it makes some fighting mad. And ever since the Supreme Court guaranteed women a constitutional right to abortion 25 years ago in the Roe v. Wade case, it has been as divisive as any social issue the country has ever had cause to debate. And in recent years the places where a woman might go to have an abortion have often been under siege. It’s a year ago today that two bombs went off at an abortion clinic in Atlanta. Today, security at all of Atlanta’s abortion clinics is very tight. There has been intimidation, some of it violent, at clinics all over the country and the effect has been apparent. When the Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973, the number of abortions went up, until in 1988 more than a million and a half woman had legal abortions. But with all this pressure on the clinics [video of corpses being covered by blankets], five people have been killed and others wounded during these campaigns to close the clinics down, it has made a difference."

Again, Jennings demonstrated the strange calculus of the pro- abortion journalist: five shootings of abortion doctors carried more moral impact than the killings of millions of the unborn. Jennings continued: "While it is still the law and woman do have a constitutional right to have an abortion, still in some places it is almost as difficult to get an abortion today as it was before Roe v. Wade. Here’s ABC’s Cynthia McFadden."

With the exception of one soundbite, McFadden’s whole story tilted toward portraying the lack of abortion access as a very ominous development: "Ketchum, Idaho, is a small town with most of the amenities of a big city — from the best wine to the best medical care. But there is one thing you cannot get in Ketchum: an abortion." Julie Caldwell claimed: "You can have anything you want, except the simple abortion procedure is not available here to the public."

McFadden explained: "Julie Caldwell runs the local abortion rights group, and while few people in Ketchum want to discuss abortion at all, she says if you need an abortion you must travel eight hours to Salt Lake City, or three hours to Boise...Doctor Ed Boas performs abortions in Boise. At 59, he’s younger than most providers. Nearly 60 percent of all U.S. providers are 65 years old or older....Which is part of the reason why there are fewer places to get an abortion today in Idaho than there were 15 years ago. Then there were 25; today there are four."

Then she focused on the threats and violence: "Doctor Boas’ first clinic was fire-bombed three times. He moved out of his next clinic because his landlord no longer wanted an abortion provider as a tenant. He asked us to not give out his newest address."

McFadden concluded: "What’s happening in Idaho is happening all across the country: 45 states have fewer providers today than they did 10 years ago. In fact, fewer doctors are being trained to perform them. Of all the OB-GYN training programs in the country, only 12 percent offer the training routinely. In part that’s because doctors are trained in hospitals and only seven percent of abortions are now performed there. State restrictions are making it more difficult to get an abortion. Last year alone, 31 states enacted laws to limit access to abortions in some way. Currently: 12 states have a mandatory waiting period, 29 states require parental notification or consent and 33 states prohibit using Medicaid funds for abortions. Idaho is one of 30 states with two or more of these restrictions." McFadden didn’t address why restrictions may be arriving: a majority of voters are deciding late-term abortions, taxpayer-funded abortions and abortions without parental notice are wrong.

After battling soundbites from pro-life state Sen. Sam Hawkins and the director of Planned Parenthood in Boise, McFadden concluded: "The latest trends suggest that in the future women who want an abortion may have to travel further, pay more, and wait longer to get one — quite different from what was predicted when Roe v. Wade became law 25 years ago."

Without noting any conflict with his earlier theme that violence drove down abortions, after an ad break Jennings noted how technology can impact how one see abortion. He showed a 16-week fetus as seen on a traditional sonogram, and then with a new 3-D view, but he reassuringly insisted: "This, by the way, is at a time when very, very few women ever, ever have an abortion. But it is partly because of such technology that people are having such an intense debate about late term abortion, which is after six months." Jennings turned to Cokie Roberts: "The Republican Party has tied itself in knots over this question of late term abortion. What’s happening?"

Roberts explained that a Republican National Committee meeting would soon vote on a proposal to deny campaign money to candidates who support partial-birth abortions: "It’s already a problem for the party. There was a primary election in California this week where the candidate who opposed partial birth abortion won over the establishment candidate of the Republican Party. So this is a tough one and Democrats are thrilled the Republicans are fighting because it’s even a tougher one for them."

At that point, just as Roberts broached the Democratic Party’s disunity, Jennings jumped in: "Okay, Cokie, you’ve covered all the ground I wanted to, thank you very much."

The bottom line: ten minutes of air time and not one story reflecting how a pro-lifer sees abortion 25 years after Roe v. Wade. ABC did not return MediaWatch calls for comment. The bias of a network which laments the lack of abortions and abortionists cannot be described as "pro-choice." It’s simply pro-abortion.

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