March
13, 2002, 10:20 a.m. Where’s
the Baby?
The
AP misses the point.
esterday,
as expected, the House of Representatives passed the Born-Alive
Infants Protection Act. The bill is as simple as they get. It gives
legal status to a baby who is born, literally, alive. The
baby, in the circumstances the bill covers, is "alive" in anyone's
dictionary; as the bill defines it: The "complete expulsion or extraction
from his or her mother" of a baby who "breathes or has a beating
heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary
muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been cut, and regardless
of whether the expulsion or extraction occurs as a result of natural or
induced labor, cesarean section, or induced abortion."
But if you get your
news from the Associated Press wire, as a good portion of the news-reading
and -gathering world does, this is what you found yesterday after the
vote: Headline: "House Oks Fetus Protection Bill." First sentence:
"The House voted Tuesday to define a fetus that is fully outside
a woman's body as having been "born alive," which would give
the fetus legal protection."
But, wait, you say,
didn't NRO just report this was about babies born alive? What's
this about a fetus?
Well, evidently the
AP stylebook defines all babies as fetuses. Maybe Peter Singer wrote the
handbook?
As
was noted yesterday on NRO, this isn't the first misnomer incident
regarding the Born-Alive Act. Just earlier this week, the Congressional
Quarterly's Daily Monitor also described the bill as all about
"fetuses." They compounded the problem by saying the bill would
prohibit partial-birth abortions, too. In their Tuesday edition, however,
the Daily Monitor referred to "newborns" and "babies."
The bit about partial-birth
abortion, as it turns out, is exactly what the Associated Press added
into their story later last night, after hearing some pro-life criticism
of the original piece. In a middle-of-the night revision of the evening
story on the bill, "House Expands Protection of Fetuses" appeared
with this additional error:
The legislation
is aimed at an abortion procedure critics call "partial-birth"
in which a fetus is partially delivered before being destroyed. Thirty
states and the District of Columbia already have laws against the procedure.
The bill, of course,
has nothing to do with partial-birth abortion, which is, as is suggested
by its name, partial birth: The baby is only partly delivered;
the skull is punctured so the infant dies before it is legally born.
Interesting to note,
too, is that the 30 menacing state-level laws restricting partial-birth
abortion the AP mentions actually no longer have the force of law thanks
to the Supreme Court's June 2000 Stenberg
decision.
Whether it be ignorance
(they didn't read the bill? "Thomas"
was down?) or advocacy-purposefully misleading readers-the press seems
to care not one wit about telling the truth when it comes to this latest
bill to pass the House.
And despite folks
who think the bill is unnecessary, it speaks to something that is happening
in hospitals and clinics today. Just refer to the testimony
of nurse Jill Stanek, who has herself witnessed the induced labor of babies,
born alive and left for dead by hospital staff (and at a Christian hospital,
too).
Pro-abortion groups
who originally opposed the bill backed off. Pro-abortion congressmen who
thought the bill unnecessary voted for it (it passed by a voice vote).
The press ought to get with it. Infanticide isn't in style with most
of America yet.
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esterday,
as expected, the House of Representatives passed the 
