Blaming the Victim
Topic: WorldNetDaily
An Aug. 3 WorldNetDaily column by Jill Stanek plays blame-the-victim in criticizing the National Organization for Women's highlighting of individual cases of women who died as the result of illegal abortions. In the case of one woman NOW cites, Becky Bell, Stanek writes:

It turned out Becky had been promiscuous since age 15 and was a known drug user. Her parents placed her in drug rehab earlier in 1988 for several weeks. The weekend before Becky died, she was, according to the coroner's report, "reportedly at a party where various drugs were being used [cocaine, 'speed,' and LSD] ... and later claimed that someone had put 'speed' in her drink."

Stanek adds: "And what about the faces of death due to legal abortions? There are four timely faces NOW could showcase – four who have died just since 2003 from legal RU-486 abortions." As ConWebWatch has noted, the number of deaths allegedly linked to RU-486 is much smaller than the number attributed to liver failure induced by taking Tylenol, as well as smaller than the number of men killed by taking Viagra. But we don't see Stanek rallying the troops to take Tylenol or Viagra off the market.

And somehow, we suspect Stanek won't be painting the purported victims of RU-486 as sluts and druggies like Becky Bell. (Not that we have any knowledge of that.)