If CNSNews.com editor-in-chief Terry Jeffrey ever cared about journalism, he certainly doesn’t now. All he cares about is stoking the right-wing outrage machine, as his eagerness to use CNS as a platform for his hatred of President Obama makes all too clear.
Jeffrey is willing to abuse his CNS platform for other right-wing causes as well, as is demonstrated by a March 11 “news” article attacking “Doonesbury” artist Garry Trudeau for a series this week mocking a new Texas law mandating invasive ultrasounds for women seeking an abortion, in particular Trudeau’s statement that there’s no difference between that and rape.
Jeffrey, however, stacks the deck against Trudeau. First, Jeffrey buries Trudeau’s explanation of his statement in the 11th paragraph of his article. Second, Jeffrey uses the interim paragraphs to tell his own version of the law:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld the law in January, describing its requirements as follows: “The amendments require the physician ‘who is to perform an abortion’ to perform and display a sonogram of the fetus, make audible the heart auscultation of the fetus for the woman to hear, and explain to her the results of each procedure and to wait 24 hours, in most cases, between these disclosures and performing the abortion. A woman may decline to view the images or hear the heartbeat, but she may decline to receive an explanation of the sonogram images only on certification that her pregnancy falls into one of three statutory exceptions.”
The court said that under the law “the physician’s unconditional obligations are merely to display images so they may be viewed, to provide an understandable explanation, and to make audible the auscultation.” The law, the court said, “specifically does not require the physician to ensure the woman views the images, that she understands the explanation, or that she listens to the auscultation.”
Well, that’s not exactly what the appeals court said: Jeffrey is editorializing by italicizing certain words, and he carefully avoids mentioning that the sonogram device is, as Trudeau described it, “a vaginal probe with a hard, plastic 10-inch wand” — which is specifically what Trudeau was referring to, pointing out that “The World Health Organization defines rape as “physically forced or otherwise coerced penetration — even if slight — of the vulva or anus, using a penis, other body parts or an object.'”
Jeffrey also falsely attacks Obama over an anti-abortion law he opposed as a state senator, claiming that he “sought to maintain legal protection for” abortions in which the fetus survives. In fact, as we pointed out when CNS did this previously, Obama has said that the behavior the law would have banned was already illegal.
Jeffrey concludes his article by bizarrely noting: “Trudeau was an embryo in 1947 and was born on July 21, 1948.”