Pro-Choice Myths Are Perpetuated by a New York Times Fetal-Personhood Story
Alexandra DeSanctis of National Review offers some facts to counter the historical inaccuracies of recent New York Times opinions.
Just days after Christmas, the New York Times editorial board released a lengthy feature on threats against abortion rights, asserting that the pro-life movement has invented the concept of “fetal personhood” in order to erode female autonomy.
The series delves into extremely rare applications of state legislation protecting the unborn — bills that criminalize drug abuse by pregnant mothers, for example — to illustrate the left-wing claim that American women are living in a “Handmaid’s Tale” created by opponents of abortion.
But this attempted bombshell exposé is in fact a compilation of half-baked pro-choice myths, historical inaccuracies, and philosophical elisions mashed together to create a bludgeon against the pro-life movement, toward which the Times evidently harbors significant animosity.
An overwhelming majority of pro-life people agree with the Times, for instance, that laws penalizing women for having suffered a miscarriage or a stillbirth are unacceptable. And yet the entire series rests on a straw man: Abortion opponents rejoice when pregnant women are thrown in jail, because they care more about punishing the errant than about protecting human life.
Far from being a thoughtful reflection on the competing legal rights of mother and fetus, the Times series offers little more than blatant fearmongering, with the help of exceptionally uncommon horror stories that it uses to demonize the pro-life perspective. Here are the three most inaccurate claims from the feature:
Read the full article at the National Review.