Patterico's Pontifications

10/18/2005

Message to Reuters: Reversing Roe Would Not “Ban” Abortion

Filed under: Abortion,Judiciary,Media Bias — Patterico @ 9:34 pm



Andrew at Confirm Them catches Reuters equating a vote against Roe v. Wade with a vote to “ban abortion.” (The Washington Post and ABC are also guilty; both reprinted the story with the same misleading headline.)

How many times do we have to go through this? A Supreme Court decision repealing Roe v. Wade would not ban abortion. It would simply return the issue to the states, many of which would provide for legal abortion.

As Ed Whelan notes at Bench Memos: “This should not be regarded as a subtle point.” Because it’s not.

6 Responses to “Message to Reuters: Reversing Roe Would Not “Ban” Abortion”

  1. “It would simply return the issue to the states, many of which would provide for legal abortion.” And many of which might well ban abortion. Reversing Roe v. Wade would result in local government exercising tyranny over women’s bodies in some areas of the USA, and not in others. This is supposed to reassure anyone how?

    Contradictiory Ben (59164a)

  2. Just looking for some accuracy, C.B.

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  3. CB, to quote one of my liberal friends on another site, “why are you afraid of democracy?”

    Harry Arthur (40c0a6)

  4. “Miers says no one knows if SHE WOULD BAN ABORTION” says the WaPo (emphasis added). Yeah, that’s the same as saying “Miers says no one knows if she would reverse the alleged consitutional limitation on state regulation of abortion, freeing each state to determine for itself the degree to which it chooses to allow and/or regulate limit it.” Right, CB?

    eddie haskell (8fd1a1)

  5. Patterico and Eddie Haskell: it’s great that your chasing accuracy, but do you think you might be missing the wood for trees? Regardless of your views on the rights and wrongs of the matter, does the word “simply” belong in a sentence casually condemning so many women to persecution (or, worse, back-street abortions) for exercising control over their own bodies.

    Harry Arthur: Nice quote, but I fear democracy is no absolute guarantee of safety or fairness, but rather “the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried” (Winston Churchill). Why is state democracy more democratic than federal democracy? Should power to criminalise abortions be delegated to townhalls?

    Contradictory Ben (59164a)

  6. Well, the states decide the death penalty…

    TCO (3c2924)


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