US Media: Epic Fail!

Yes, I am sure you've heard. Anyone with a Facebook account and/or a newspaper has heard by now. I think even the late great George Carlin has heard by now and I know that Helen Keller may have seen it too. I'm not going to say too much about the tragedy itself largely because I have addressed the issue of abortion and how people think about it countless times on and off the blogs. I will say that my heart goes out to Dr. Tiller's friends and family. I hope they know how much women like me valued his work and dedication to my reproductive rights and the oppression of women. I am grateful for everything he did for women and I will be making a donation in his honor to Planned Parenthood later this week.

Instead, I am going to address another topic I speak of frequently, which is the failures of the journalist community. Sure, Dr. Tiller provided abortions. Sure they made 'em and he scraped 'em. Sure he wore a white jacket and removed fetuses from women at the woman's request. He also saw women for a host of other gynecological and family planning reasons. Hell, he might even have looked at a scar or two and written a prescription for toenail fungus. He did have a DEA number, mind as well use it now and again, right?

While the mere mention of him providing general gynecological services to women is missing from the news because he is a LATE TERM ABORTION DOCTOR, the more flagrant violation and injustice of information is that less than 1% of all US abortions are performed during the last trimester of pregnancy. Of those late phase abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, 99% of them are because there was a problem with the pregnancy and it was in the interest of the mother and/or fetus to terminate the pregnancy. Thus, it's rarely that irresponsible teenager who didn't make it to the clinic on time or the slutty African American mother from the projects, or whatever bad stereotype that goes through an individuals minds when she or he reads the newspapers or digests sound bytes.

Media is focused on him being an ABORTION DOCTOR. The media outlets are citing that he provided late term abortion. Yet, I am not clear whether this includes second or exclusively third trimester abortions. What I am certain about is that those of us who study reproductive ethics consider late phase abortions to be third trimester only. Thus, I will exclusively speak about third trimester abortions here.

From my cursory review of this terrible tragedy thus far, media has failed to recognize that worldwide 50% of pregnancies are unwanted and approximately 50% end in abortion annually. More locally, 40% of pregnancies are terminated via elective abortion in the US annually. A rare few are terminated during the third trimester and the majority are terminated because of a medical concern for woman and or her fetus.

In 2005, the Guttmacher Institute reported 1.2 million legal abortions in the US. Calculations suggest then that annually there are approximately 12,000 abortions during the last trimester of pregnancy. Thus, a man who performed on average no more than 100 late term abortions annually (it's Witchta, KS folks!) and possibly during the course of his medical career, in women whose pregnancies had gone terribly awry, is being coined a LATE TERM ABORTION doctor.

It would be useful for media to present what I have just said. Unfortunately they won't. If they did, think about the potential for documenting that abortion does not have a causal relationship to breast cancer, neither does vaccinations to autism, and oh yeah, you only need a pap smear every three years if you have a history of normal paps.

Media once again shines the light on news and abortion incorrectly. My hope is that you will share this post with at least one other person you know. Maybe then, we can undo the harm that media continues to bestow upon us. more...