Conservatives and pro-life Americans regularly challenge many in the media for their biased coverage in favor of abortion. But, as it turns out, a well-known abortion supporter and media-beloved figure – Hillary Clinton – is unhappy with their reporting too.
Glamour magazine staff writer Jenny Singer recently spoke with the former Secretary of State in an interview published on February 19. The piece went largely unnoticed, even though it contained a big name and a controversial issue: Hillary Clinton and abortion. Among other things, Clinton stressed that the press “don’t understand” the importance of “reproductive health.”
From the beginning of the interview, Singer fawned over the 72-year-old armed with “unerringly polite, acerbic takedowns,” including that “of the way the press treats abortion rights.” Clinton spoke via phone from a local clinic in Puerto Rico that partners with the Clinton Foundation to support pregnant women and new mothers. Her location ironically provided a springboard for Singer to ask about “reproductive rights,” along with climate change.
“For many millennial and Gen-Z women, the idea of bringing children onto an increasingly unlivable planet feels terrifying, or even inhumane,” Singer worried. She raised this concern with Clinton.
According to Clinton, that decision is a “highly personal choice.” For her, she said, “I think children give you a perspective on the future that gets you more activated.” (Born children, that is.)
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Singer disagreed.
“[I]t’s hard to be hopeful—certainly to be so zanily optimistic that you think more people should be alive right now—while women disappear one by one from the Democratic primary stage, as if the election is a terrible murder-mystery dinner party,” she wrote.
And, for Singer, this phenomenon impacted the conversation on “reproductive rights.”
“As women and people of color exit the race, candidates are speaking less about women’s health and reproductive rights than ever,” she warned
But Clinton didn’t blame the candidates as much as she did the media.
“You know, the press has never taken reproductive health seriously,” Clinton urged. “And I know that from my own races—they don’t raise it, they don’t understand its importance.”
They certainly raised it during the 2016 presidential election though. From the beginning, the broadcast network news shows vocalized Planned Parenthood’s endorsement of Clinton, while remaining silent on pro-life leaders’ support of then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. And when Trump brought up abortion during the 2016 debates, the media sided with Clinton while “fact-checking” his “stupidity.”
Still, Clinton told Singer, “We have to do a better job of speaking up and educating people about why this is a critical issue for women.”
At another point, she consoled Singer, who complained that “Making your way through a world in which some believe fetuses are human even as they ignore the death rates of real, live women is depressing” just as is “living—and bringing life into—a world where the climate is out of control.”
“That’s exactly what powerful people want,” Singer summarized Clinton's response, which included recommending readers to volunteer at organizations like Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider. “They want you to feel powerless.”
If anything, Singers’ piece – and its contents – prove that the media take abortion as “reproductive health” seriously. What the media don’t take seriously is abortion as the ending of a human life – a person.
The media regularly offer more coverage to events that promote abortion, like the Women’s March, than to rallies that celebrate life, including that of the unborn, such as the March for Life. Both events take place in Washington, D.C. in January, draw tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of attendees, and highlight women.
Even with President Trump’s historic appearance at the 2020 March for Life, the broadcast networks combined spent just 28 seconds on the event, according to NewsBusters’ Kristine Marsh.
Many in the media regularly repeat studies that they say show women don’t regret abortion, while overlooking the women who say that they do. They assume all women support abortion at the cost of censoring millions of pro-life women nationwide. They ignore abortionist horror stories from Kermit Gosnell to Ulrich “George” Klopfer. The list goes on.
Clinton is right that the media must cover issues like abortion more seriously – just not in the way that she suggests.
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