As gratifying a headline as “Dems grow alarmed by lack of fear over Roe’s future” will be to pro-lifers, the Politico article by Laura Barrón-López and Alice Miranda Ollstein that it adorns is a good example of the crummy one-sided coverage that abortion frequently gets in the mainstream media.
My eyebrow was raised by the third paragraph, when the reporters explain that Planned Parenthood is running a big ad campaign accompanied by websites “to educate the public on abortion access in different states.” Try to imagine Politico using such language to describe a pro-life ad campaign.
In paragraph six, we hear that “red states from Arizona to Florida have passed a host of sweeping bans on the procedure.” Both named states’ bans apply only after the 15th week, which means they have “sweeping” bans of less than 9 percent and less than 4 percent, respectively, of instances of the procedure.
Then the reporters write that Republicans are “aiming to label Democrats as ‘extremists’ on the issue,” adding, “But Democrats point out that public polling is on their side.” You’ll notice the difference in verbs (“label” / “point out”) and who gets a link to back up their case. The link goes to a progressive polling firm, naturally. The article goes on to discuss polling a few more times, but never hints that any pollster has ever found that the public sides with Republicans on any abortion-related question. Such as 15-week bans, which generally poll well.
The reporters also fret that Americans are “uninformed or misinformed” about abortion, citing a poll that found that only a minority of Americans believe that the Supreme Court is likely to overturn Roe v. Wade. There is, however, more widespread misinformation of a more substantive kind. More than two-thirds of Americans, according to a 2019 survey, think that overturning Roe would mean an automatic national ban on abortion. That misunderstanding has helped to increase support for Roe. The Politico story mentions the public’s support for Roe in polls without, of course, noting this caveat.
But making sure that Americans are well-informed about the abortion debate — or even about the politics of abortion — is a job that much of the press has never taken to heart.