One emerging story proves the degree to which our "objective" media's views on abortion are dogmatic and extreme. Abortionist Kermit Gosnell is on trial in Philadelphia, and not just for killing babies outside the womb, but also for killing a mother through reckless use of anesthesia. Network TV coverage of the trial? Zero on ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, NPR and PBS. CNN's entire coverage seems to be one sentence from Jake Tapper on March 21.
The New York Times wrote one story before the trial began on March 19 (buried on page A17). The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and USA Today couldn't be "national" newspapers and report this trial.
They're not unaware of it. CBS aired one story after the initial clinic raid in 2011. NBC offered 50 words. CBS even passed along that Gosnell's clinic was described as a "house of horrors." Now it's in court, and the networks can't find any horrors.
Take the Associated Press report, which appeared on CBSNews.com: "The amount of drugs given to Karnamaya Mongar -- at least as suggested by the nearly illegible clinic note -- was likely to put her in a coma," said Dr. Andrew Herlich, a medical school professor.
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Mongar was a very sympathetic figure. A native of Bhutan, she weighed less than 100 pounds, spoke no English and had lived for decades in refugee camps in Nepal before coming to America four months before her death. But the storyline wasn't lining up with the media's feminist prejudices. Their "war on women" narrative didn't include her.
I'll give you a story that falls in line with the media's narrative supporting the plight of women: On Nov. 14, 2012, NBC News aired a report from Ireland, where Indian immigrant Savita Halapanavar died of blood poisoning after seeking an abortion. NBC blamed the government because the woman and her husband "pleaded for an abortion but were refused, because the fetus still had a heartbeat. This is a Catholic country, they were told."
NBC never returned to the story as hospital officials reported previous "terminations" to save the mother's life and denied a "Catholic ethos." To listen to this network is to conclude that abortionists don't kill women. Catholics do.
You can also see the anti-Catholic animus determining which trials are newsworthy in Philadelphia. On May 23, 2012, the "CBS Evening News" began with the trial of Monsignor William Lynn, accused of covering up child sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Scott Pelley wasn't shy about letting the prosecutor speak as she compared the Catholic Church with the Nazis at Nuremberg.
But when a pro-lifer uses Holocaust metaphors for an abortion clinic, he is condemned.
The trial testimony is graphic and should make "choice" advocates sick to their stomachs. Again, see the AP: "A medical assistant told a jury Tuesday that she snipped the spines of at least 10 babies during unorthodox abortions at a West Philadelphia clinic, at the direction of the clinic's owner."
Later, AP mangled the medical facts: "Abortions are typically performed in utero." When babies are killed over a toilet, as alleged in this trial, this is not an "unorthodox abortion" of a "fetus." This is a baby who is born and then murdered. Liberals claim to revere "science," but this trial is not about tiny "zygotes." It's about viable babies.
It gets more grotesque at every turn. Clinic assistant Adrienne Moton testified she took a photo of the child described as "Baby A" with her cell phone before Dr. Gosnell took the baby out of the room. "I just saw a big baby boy. He had that color, that color that a baby has," Moton said in court. "I just felt he could have had a chance. ... He could have been born any day."
Another Gosnell assistant said the abortionist joked about one child he murdered: "This baby is big enough to walk around with me or walk me to the bus stop." But the AP reported that Gosnell sat serenely in the courtroom, undisturbed by the accusations.
He's not alone. ABC, CBS and NBC piled up 96 stories on Todd Akin's medically inept comments on rape and abortion and also wallowed in outrage over Richard Mourdock's remarks on God's will and a child conceived in rape. Their pro-life rhetoric was sold as a major scandal. It's unbelievable that Dr. Gosnell's trial for his actions inside his "house of horrors" haven't drawn one network story.
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