Topic: Media Research Center
An Oct. 9 MRC "Media Reality Check" by Rich Noyes and Matthew Balan, in claiming that "the big broadcast networks" have failed to sufficiently report on Barack Obama's "pro-abortion stance," misrepresents Obama's views on abortion by repeating discredited right-wing claims.
The article repeats claims by anti-Obama activist Jill Stanek, "who described how a baby who survived an 'induced labor abortion' was abandoned by the hospital staff." But Noyes and Balan fail to mention that, as we've pointed out, Stanek's claims were never substantiated.
Noyes and Balan also assert that "Obama’s most extreme pro-abortion move came in Illinois, when he voted against a bill to protect babies born alive following unsuccessful abortions, the Born Alive Infant Protection Act." But they fail to note that Obama has claimed that the bill wouldn't have forbidden anything that wasn't already illegal.
They also claim that a CNN fact check on Obama's opposition over a proposed Illinois "born alive" bill failed to admit that Obama "unfairly attacked his critics as liars" by claiming that the bill originally failed to include to include "neutrality clause" protecting the status quo on abortion as a similar federal bill did because a clause identical to the federal clause was added to the bill. They fail to mention that, as we've noted, a state law containing the same language as the federal law would not have offered the same protection because no federal laws regarding abortion, which is regulated at the state level.
It was not until 2005, after Obama left the state legislature, that a "born alive" law passed in Illinois that specifically stated that it would not affect "existing federal or state law regarding abortion," a clause missing from earlier versions of the bill.
