Top 12 Life Related stories major news outlets should have covered in 2011 but didn't
Feminists Choosing Life of New York reviewed the overwhelming news stories related to anti-abortion policy, court decisions, research and activism that happened in 2011 that were largely ignored by major newspapers and “mainstream media”. Here are 12 we feel are most important not in any particular order:
European Court ruling on member states’ rights: A Court ruled that an Irish woman, whose cancer threatened to return, was allowed to abort her child. However the stunning news was hidden at the bottom of the AP story: Strict anti-abortion Irish Law does not violate the European Convention on Human Rights. This Court decision in December of 2010 allows each member nation to decide abortion laws independently. Europe’s ruling is essentially the flipside of US’s Roe v Wade Decision.
The mysterious and abrupt departure of Kelli Ann Conlon: A story that would rile any Occupy Wall Street crowd, this 20 year Director of National Abortion Action Rights League’s Pro-Choice New York, left in February, 2011, after a forensic audit by the group revealed major financial misconduct.
350,000 at March for Life in Washington DC: Like in Egypt and in Tunisia where YouTube is playing a role in networking, people’s cell phone cameras at the March on January 24, 2011, tells the stories the newspapers either distort or completely ignore. In April, the overwhelming number of young people in the pro-life ranks got a nod, not by the media, but by the Nancy Keenan, head of NARAL when she said: “There are so many of them, and they are so young.”
Planned Parenthood clinic administrator resignations: Since Abbey Johnson, the Regional Planned Parenthood executive and media spokesperson, left her position in 2009, nine other clinic administrators have walked out. Claiming PP’s overwhelming focus on increasing their abortion numbers, and that the fetus ‘really is a baby’, Johnson has begun a support group of ex-Planned Parenthood administrators. Johnson spoke in Rochester in November, 2011.
Congressional investigation of Planned Parenthood: On September 15, 2011, US Representative Cliff Sterns (R-FL), Chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, called for an investigation of charges against Planned Parenthood. Among the charges are covering up possible sex trafficking, violating state laws re minors’ abortions, and Medicaid fraud.
Embryonic Stem Cell Lawsuits: Begun in 2009, Feminists Choosing Life of NY lost their appeal of New York State’s Stem Cell Board re: the Board’s use of embryos and women’s eggs in research. However, on November 14, 2011, Geron, the major research company using federal dollars, abandoned their embryonic stem cell research program. And just this month in an apparent power play, Obama allowed the funding through the National Institute of Health of 4 additional stem cell lines, despite the research industry’s apparent quiet withdrawal.
The explosion of information on gendercide: Demographers report in 2011 that the practice of selectively aborting females in some Asian countries, particularly China, is more severe than previously suspected. Chai Ling, the student leader of the Tiananmen Square Movement, has begun All Girls Allowed, a Foundation in Boston, to address this injustice.
NYC ruling re: Pregnancy resource centers: In July, 2011, a federal judge ruled that Mayor Bloomberg’s law that required Crisis Pregnancy centers to ad a disclaimer on their advertisements was unconstitutional and an infringement on free speech rights. Months-long protests, petitions, vigils, and public hearings by pro-life people preceded the decision.
The Forty Days for Life vigils in 247 cities: In the Spring and Fall 2011, an estimated 80,000 people protested in front of Planned Parenthood clinics in 8 countries, including the US and Canada. A reported 732 mothers decided to keep their babies. Three abortion clinics closed their doors.
Planned Parenthood defunded in 9 states: Throughout 2011, the domino effect swept through Wisconsin, Kansas, Indiana, and North Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, New Hampshire, Texas and New Jersey. All elected to defund the Planned Parenthood of state dollars. Alleging misconduct, misuse of funds, and fraud of Planned Parenthood, states are tightening their budgets by withdrawing from this abortion giant millions of states’ dollars. Most recently, the New Hampshire Executive Council voted in June to cancel a $1.8 million dollar contract with Planned Parenthood, citing that taxpayers would be subsidizing, at least indirectly. As he has in other states, the Obama administration decided to bypass the state’s decision to reject taxpayer funding of the abortion giant and make a grant to Planned Parenthood in the state from Federal dollars. This story unfolds daily and New Hampshire filed suit against Obama in December 2011.
Johns Hopkins researchers on abortion/breast cancer link: A study published by Women in Health Care International last month reported that 2 Johns Hopkins and an Armenian research team found that abortion nearly triples the risk of breast cancer in women.
The passage of eighty plus new Pro-life laws at the state level: By the end of 2011, pro-life oriented legislation was passed in 47 states: Women’s Right to Know, sonogram bills, partial birth abortion ban and tele-med abortion bans. The overwhelming majority of these will reduce the number of abortions.
The nature and import of these news stories reflect a radical shift in the abortion debate. While not always reported in depth or at all in the mainstream press or even on-line editions of major newspapers, they appear almost daily over video and social networking sites and alternative on-line news sources. Most involve court decisions, lawsuits, medical research, and policy decisions that investigative journalists can retrieve through a search of publicly accessible government documents.
Questions arise about what the responsibility of major news media is to report on or properly document this radical shift in the abortion debate. Another important question that remains to be answered is: Will the news media ever rise above the volatility of the issue to objectively report on it?