US News & World Report's Curious Case of Misinformation

Unfortunately, one of the country's leading mainstream publications covering news from around the world, continues to publish incorrect information on its website related to the House health care reform bill and the hotly debated Stupak Amendment. In Paul Bedard's "Washington Whispers", Bedard writes, 

Blocking government funding of abortions, the major compromise in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's healthcare reform bill Saturday night, was a significant victory for antiabortion Republicans who have long sought to identify "pro-life" Democrats. "This vote locks in 64 Democrats on this precise pro-life language," a key GOP adviser says of the vote on the Stupak-Pitts amendment.

The amendment bars government funds under the Pelosi healthcare plan for payment for abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or when the mother's life is in danger.

In fact, "blocking government funding of abortions" is a misleading and extremely incomplete description of what the House voted on this weekend. We already have an amendment that's been on the books for forty years that does that - it's called The Hyde Amendment. This language is not solely what representatives voted on. What representatives passed was a bill that includes an amendment which goes far beyond barring "government funds...for payment for abortion." The Stupak Amendment railroads women's access to abortion coverage through private insurance:

The Stupak-Pitts amendment prohibits any coverage of abortion in the public option and prohibits anyone receiving a federal subsidy from purchasing a health insurance plan that includes abortion.  It also prohibits private health insurance plans from offering through the exchange a plan that includes abortion coverage to both subsidized and unsubsidized individuals.  

The above is from Planned Parenthood's excellent legal analysis. It's more than frustrating when the mainstream media can't be bothered to understand what the legal ramifications are, for women,  from health care reform bills being voted upon.

If you have a moment, please head over to Bedard's post and school him on what really went down in the House this weekend. 

Meanwhile, it's being reported that, in fact, the Senate will have the votes to block an anti-choice amendment from being included in the Senate's health care reform bill.

New Media Birthing?

From Midwife Connection, the blog of the American College of Nurse-Midwives:

Lynsee is a 23-year-old who is pregnant with her first child and one of more than 4 million women who will give birth this year. But there’s something different about this teacher who lives with her husband in Minnesota. She plans to broadcast her labor and birth live on the Internet.

Lynsee is a first time mother who actually gave birth on Saturday, November 7th to a baby girl. With the heaps of mainstream media images of childbirth saturating girls' and womens' brains (most women don't ever see a real birth before their own - instead subjected to mass media childbirth which is rarely, if ever, an honest portrayal of what birth is really like), it's an amazing gift to share your own experience with women who want to truly see what birth is like (at least one woman's birth experience).

What Would Jesus Do?

On Broadsheet today, Kate Harding's question to the Chicago Tribune, having recently reported on couples struggling with what to do with "leftover embryos" resulting from IVF treatment, is more of a plea. After having read the article Harding asks a friend, "Am I crazy, or does this article totally take it on faith (ha!) that everyone deciding what to do with an embryo is religious?"

Harding takes the author to task not for the subject matter (couples of faith making authentic, soul searching decisions about what to do with the frozen embryos given their religious convictions) but rather with the fact that the article, from the beginning, does not make clear that it is solely focusing on how religious plays a part in these decisions. Because of this, presumably, the article never explores what other couples do in the same circumstances - namely, donate the embryos to stem-cell research. 

"...after 10 paragraphs, the author, Manya A. Brachear, notes, "Such decisions, doctors say, are often informed and framed by faith" -- which is enough to justify focusing on that angle for one article. But it would be nice if said article either led with a clear indication that it was doing just that, or else acknowledged that "What would Jesus do?" is not the central question facing every couple with embryos in storage."

There's also no 'here are some of the things that stem cell research is used for' info. It's all, 'Your dead babies will go to Science, whatever that is.'"

Harding takes the next, logical step in the argument and relates the discussion to the broader public discussion about anti-choice advocates fight to legally define "personhood." Unfortunately, it's not something the author of the original article deems important enough to mention.