A July 14 CNSNews.com article by Susan Jones began:
If you want proof that President Obama’s Executive Order on taxpayer-funded abortion was a sham, look no further than Pennsylvania, says House Republican Leader John Boehner (Ohio).
Boehner and other Republicans point to reports that the Health and Human Services Department is giving Pennsylvania $160 million to set up a new high-risk insurance pool that will cover any abortion that is legal in the state.
Jones went on to treat those reports as true, making no apparent attempt to verify the claim.
Guess what? It’s not true.
Jones followed up with a July 15 article that’s not exactly a correction, but it tells the other side of the story she couldn’t be bothered to get the day before. Instead of properly portraying it as the correction it is, Jones framed it as a he-said, she-said. Her article began:
Several Democrats say pro-life conservatives have it wrong: They say the $160 million taxpayer dollars going to fund Pennsylvania’s new high-risk insurance pool will not fund abortion, except in cases of rape or incest, or where the “life of the woman would be endangered.”
Jones then spent the next four paragraphs repeating the false claim beforegetting around to statements by federal officials and Rep. Bart Stupak discrediting it.
Jones closed her article with a section titled “‘Elective abortions are not covered’ – or are they?” in which she repeats yet again the National Right to Life Committee’s discredited assertion that abortion is covered.
If CNS is not going to treat facts as facts and discredited claims as discredited claims, why is it even pretending to be a “news” organization?