{"id":310280,"date":"2024-04-13T15:09:53","date_gmt":"2024-04-13T20:09:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=310280"},"modified":"2024-09-20T12:09:34","modified_gmt":"2024-09-20T17:09:34","slug":"fact-checker-fail-poynter-abortion-survivors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/fact-checker-fail-poynter-abortion-survivors\/","title":{"rendered":"Fact checker fails to tell the truth on abortion survivors and infanticide"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The idea of allowing a baby to die of neglect after surviving an abortion is rightly considered abhorrent; actively killing an infant after birth is even worse. Abortion advocates often deny that these events happen at all; a new article from the fact-checking Poynter Institute for Media Studies is the latest example of this.<\/p>\n

An article<\/a> from Louis Jacobson and Samantha Putterman set out to debunk claims from President Donald Trump that some politicians support the killing of children, sometimes even those that accidentally survive abortions. In a video posted to Truth Social, Trump called the Democratic Party extreme on the issue of abortion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey support abortion up to and even beyond the ninth month,\u201d he said. \u201cThe concept of having an abortion in the later months, and even execution after birth. And that\u2019s exactly what it is. The baby is born, the baby is executed after birth is unacceptable, and almost everyone agrees with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jacobson and Putterman roundly dismissed this claim. “We have rated similar statements from Trump and other Republican leaders False,” they wrote. “Democrats aren\u2019t calling for the killing of infants after birth. Willfully ending a newborn\u2019s life is illegal in every U.S. state.”<\/p>\n

But is this fact check telling the whole truth? In short, no.<\/p>\n

In their article, the authors make at least three serious errors: 1) They put the testimony of abortion providers over actual reported facts from the CDC and state reports, 2) they falsely claim that existing federal law already prevents leaving abortion survivors to die (infanticide), and 3) they claim that infanticide is illegal in every state \u2014 and therefore, it never happens.<\/p>\n

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Poynter Institute Screenshot<\/p><\/div>\n

Pro-abortion bias<\/h3>\n

Numerous pro-abortion advocates were cited as sources to disprove Trump’s claim.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsing the word \u2018execute\u2019 heightens the rhetoric here, but even if he said \u2018killing\u2019 it doesn\u2019t matter,\u201d Lois Shepherd, a University of Virginia law and biomedical ethics professor, said. \u201cAbortion providers do not do this, doctors do not do this, no politicians that I know of support this \u2014 it\u2019s a made up issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not mentioned is that Shepherd is co-director<\/a> of Studies in Reproductive Ethics and Justice at the University of Virginia, that she has written books in support of abortion, and that she has called for<\/a> a federal law mandating abortion’s legality.<\/p>\n

Mary Ziegler, an abortion historian and law professor at University of California, Davis, also was quoted as saying that Trump’s use of the word execution \u201cgoes back to a much earlier era, right after Roe, when abortion methods were more primitive. Occasionally there were live births and doctors would be prosecuted.\u201d Ziegler, too, has called for restrictions on abortion to be eliminated<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe language of \u2018execution\u2019 is ignorant, deceptive, inappropriate and is being used only to provoke outrage when in fact it is mercy and compassion that drives post-abortion care of horribly malformed children,\u201d said Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at New York University Langone Medical Center. Caplan has called for<\/a> Catholic hospitals to be defunded, while urging Planned Parenthood to receive taxpayer dollars. He has also stated<\/a> that he believes children with disabilities should not be considered for organ transplantation.<\/p>\n

Existing law is not enough<\/h3>\n

The article goes on to argue that existing child abuse laws, along with the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002, is enough to protect abortion survivors from being actively killed or left to die. Yet this is, unfortunately, false.<\/p>\n

Other legislation aiming to specifically protect abortion survivors has failed<\/a> in the past, with pro-abortion legislators and activists specifically claiming that the 2002 legislation was already enough. Yet the 2002 bill includes virtually no penalties<\/em> for anyone who breaks the law.<\/p>\n

It does not mandate the kind of treatment abortion survivors should receive, or even if they must be transported to the nearest hospital. The legislation essentially only protects abortion survivors in theory<\/em> by proclaiming them to be \u201cpersons,” separate from their mothers.<\/p>\n

If an abortionist still chooses to leave an abortion survivor to die (or actively kills him or her), there are no “teeth,” so to speak, to the 2002 law.<\/p>\n

Abortion survivors exist<\/h3>\n

The article outright stated that babies surviving abortions is a myth.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have been looking for evidence for decades of being born alive after abortions and there aren\u2019t any to my knowledge, and that\u2019s not particularly surprising,\u201d Ziegler erroneously claimed. \u201cThe procedures most doctors would use later in pregnancy today would make it impossible to result in a live birth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet this, too, is false.<\/p>\n