On Thursday's All Things Considered, Julie Rovner, NPR's resident
ObamaCare flack, claimed that the U.S. Senate rejecting an amendment
protecting religious liberty was "closer than the 63 percent majority that supports the contraceptive coverage requirement"
from the federal government, according to the poll from the liberal
Kaiser Family Foundation. The organization is an oft-used source for
Rovner.
The group obtained the 63 percent figure by asking a question [1] that omits the religious liberty component to the firestorm: "In
general, do you support or oppose the new federal requirement that
private health insurance plans cover the cost of birth control?" A Pew Research Poll [2]
from mid-February included that issue, and found that 48 percent
supported an exemption for religious groups, versus 44 percent in
support of the mandate.
Almost three weeks earlier, the correspondent filed an unashamedly one-sided report [3]
about the controversial mandate from the Obama administration, which
forces religious institutions to include coverage of abortifacients,
sterilizations, and birth control. Her sole sources during the segment
were two lawyers - one who works for the left-wing ACLU, and worked in
the past for a pro-abortion organization; and a lawyer from the federal
government's own EEOC.
Host Robert Siegel set the tone with a slanted introduction for Rovner's report [4]:
"The Senate has defeated narrowly an effort to roll back President
Obama's policy requiring most insurers to offer no-cost contraceptives. Republicans have been arguing the issue is a matter religious freedom. But as NPR's Julie Rovner reports, they were narrowly trumped by those arguing in favor of women's health."
After playing a sound bite from Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, who criticized the federal mandate, the NPR journalist regurgitated the left's talking points about the proposed Blunt Amendment: "[T]he proposal would not just apply to contraceptives, and it would not just apply to insurance companies. It would have allowed any health insurer or employer to decline to offer any benefit that is- quote, 'contrary to the religious beliefs or moral convictions of the plan's sponsor.'"
Later, Rovner gave more slanted language about the debate over the amendment, with supporting soundbites from liberal senators:
ROVNER: ...[T]he
debate never strayed too far from the issue at hand- access to
contraceptives for women. Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders said
sponsors of the amendment were trying to roll back the clock on women's
reproductive rights.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, (I), VERMONT: If the United States Senate had 83
women and 17 men rather than 83 men and 17 women, my strong guess is
that a bill like this would never even make it to the floor.
ROVNER: But others, like Louisiana Republican David Vitter, said the debate has been mischaracterized by the media.
SEN. DAVID VITTER, (R), LOUISIANA: This isn't merely about
contraception. It's about abortion. It's about abortion-inducing drugs,
like Plan B.
ROVNER: For the record, Plan B, the so-called morning-after
pill, is classified by the FDA as a contraceptive. It's not the same as
the abortion pill, RU-486, but one of the ways Plan B may work is by
preventing the implantation of a fertilized egg into a woman's uterus.
So for those who believe that life begins at fertilization of egg and
sperm, that drug could be considered to cause very early abortions, and
that has added to the controversy. But, still, it's a debate that
Democrats, like Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin, mostly
welcome.
SEN. DICK DURBIN, (D), ILLINOIS: The vote today should be a clear
message to those who are following that if we take extreme positions
from the social agenda that we hear so often in these Republican
primaries and bring them to a vote, common sense and majority feeling in
America will prevail.
The Louisiana politician has a point about the media's coverage of the controversy. A February 16, 2012 study [5]by the MRC found that the Big Three networks "downplayed
the religious freedom component to the story, casting it instead as a
political dogfight between liberals and conservatives....Out of
the 91 talking heads who appeared as soundbites on their morning or
evening programs [between January 30 and February 15, 2012]...politicians far outnumbered Church officials, by a margin of 60 to 9."
The NPR correspondent ended her report with her 63 percent figure from
the left-leaning group, and added that "the poll also found, however,
that half of those surveyed think the whole issue is being blown up now
largely because of election year politics." Rovner has touted polls from
Kaiser Family Foundation on at least three other occasions [6] since August 2011. Her liberal-leaning network has a joint partnership with the organization [7], along with the Harvard School of Public Health, a detail which she didn't mention on-air during those three occasions.
The full transcript of Julie Rovner's report from Thursday's All Things Considered:
ROBERT SIEGEL: The Senate has defeated narrowly an effort to roll back
President Obama's policy requiring most insurers to offer no-cost
contraceptives. Republicans have been arguing the issue is a matter
religious freedom.
But as NPR's Julie Rovner reports, they were narrowly trumped by those arguing in favor of women's health.
JULIE ROVNER: Republicans came out swinging against the contraceptive
rule in today's Senate floor debate. Even after it was amended last
month to satisfy some religious employers, said Utah's Orrin Hatch, it
still goes too far.
SEN. ORRIN HATCH, (R), UTAH: This amendment is necessary because of
ObamaCare, the health care law that manifests new threats to personal
liberty and individual rights with each passing week.
ROVNER: But the proposal would not just apply to contraceptives, and it
would not just apply to insurance companies. It would have allowed any
health insurer or employer to decline to offer any benefit that is-
quote, 'contrary to the religious beliefs or moral convictions of the
plan's sponsor.' The bill's sponsor, Missouri Republican Roy Blunt,
defended the scope of that language.
SEN. ROY BLUNT, (R), MISSOURI: If you are of a faith that believes that
something is absolutely wrong, as an employer, why would you want to
pay for that?
ROVNER: But Democrats, like California's Barbara Boxer, were quick to
pounce with what ifs about what employers might be able to do with that
policy.
SEN. BARBARA BOXER, (D), CALIFORNIA: We believe prayer is the answer.
We don't believe in chemotherapy. We believe that, you know, if someone
is heavy and they're obese and they get diabetes, we have a moral
objection to helping them because, you know what? They didn't lead a
clean life.
ROVNER: Still, the debate never strayed too far from the issue at hand-
access to contraceptives for women. Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders
said sponsors of the amendment were trying to roll back the clock on
women's reproductive rights.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, (I), VERMONT: If the United States Senate had 83
women and 17 men, rather than 83 men and 17 women, my strong guess is
that a bill like this would never even make it to the floor.
ROVNER: But others, like Louisiana Republican David Vitter, said the debate has been mischaracterized by the media.
SEN. DAVID VITTER, (R), LOUISIANA: This isn't merely about
contraception. It's about abortion. It's about abortion-inducing drugs,
like Plan B.
ROVNER: For the record, Plan B, the so-called morning-after pill, is
classified by the FDA as a contraceptive. It's not the same as the
abortion pill, RU-486, but one of the ways Plan B may work is by
preventing the implantation of a fertilized egg into a woman's uterus.
So for those who believe that life begins at fertilization of egg and
sperm, that drug could be considered to cause very early abortions, and
that has added to the controversy. But, still, it's a debate that
Democrats, like Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin, mostly
welcome.
SEN. DICK DURBIN, (D), ILLINOIS: The vote today should be a clear
message to those who are following that if we take extreme positions
from the social agenda that we hear so often in these Republican
primaries and bring them to a vote, common sense and majority feeling in
America will prevail.
ROVNER: In fact, the 51-48 vote was closer than the 63 percent majority
that supports the contraceptive coverage requirement. That's according
to a new poll out today from the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.
The poll also found, however, that half of those surveyed think the
whole issue is being blown up now largely because of election year
politics. But now that it's on the agenda, expect both sides to continue
to pursue the religious freedom and contraception issues as the
campaign season wears on. Julie Rovner, NPR News, Washington.