Topic: Media Research Center
The next time an anti-abortion activist tells you they're not about forcing women to give birth, we need simply point to the Media Research Center's resident anti-abortion extremist, Tierin-Rose Mandelburg. She demanded that a Texas woman be forced to give birth to a fetus that would likely not survive outside of the womb (if it didn't die inside the womb first, that is) and might jeopardize the woman's life and future fertility in a Dec. 8 post:
Kate Cox learned at 20 weeks gestation with her baby that the child had a fetal abnormality. Rather than allowing the child to grow to full term and giving it the best chance at life, Cox wants to kill her child. A Texas judge, surprisingly, is allowing it to happen.
Cox, a 31-year-old Dallas woman and mom of two and one on the way (for now) learned that her baby in the womb developed a rare fetal abnormality. Her unborn daughter was diagnosed with Trisomy 18, which oftentimes results in a fatal outcome either just before or right after birth however, that isn’t always the case.
Nonetheless, Cox, who is past the limit for abortion in Texas, is suing the state so that she can obtain an emergency abortion as she doesn’t want a child with issues. As the lawsuit states, the baby girl “likely” has “an umbilical hernia; a twisted spine likely due to spina bifida, a neural tube defect; clubbed or ‘rocker-bottom’ foot; intrauterine growth restriction; and irregular skull and heart development.”
The lawsui also alleges that there would be risks for Cox during the delivery process, as there all with all childbirth processes but that if any of those risks resulted in actual harm, her chances for more pregnancies in the future could be at jeopardy[.]
Mandelburg's headlline screeched, "Judge Permits Mother to Illegally Dismember Her 20-Week-Old Preborn Daughter." But if the woman has gone through the legal process to obtain permission from a judge to get the procedure, it's not illegal. Given that the goal of anti-abortion extremists is to shame women for having abortions no matter how necessary and eliminating as many exceptions as possible -- and that their logical endpoint is to punish and imprison any woman who has ever had one -- Mandelburg cited her fellow activists to play the shame-and-punish card:
As of now however, Ken Paxton, Texas AG, insisted that he’d prosecute any doctor who performs an abortion on Cox as an abortion at this point in pregnancy in the state is illegal.
Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life tweeted the following about Cox’s case.
“This is eugenics and selfishness,” Hawkins wrote and then added what Cox may be thinking “I know my child may die after birth (which by the way many children with Trisomy 18 survive for years after) and I don't have to have to watch my child die in front of me, so I'm going to pay someone to kill her now.”
I’d like to think that Cox was an exception but as of now, that’s not how it looks. Just a few days after Cox issued her lawsuit, a woman in Kentucky asked a judge to grant her the same exception. “Two test cases for what could become a widely utilized strategy to access abortion care in post-Roe America,” an X user noted.
At this time there have not been reports indicating whether Cox has terminated her daughter’s life or not.
Mandelburg made no attempt to justify her anti-abortion absolutism and how she apparently hopes Cox will be harmed or killed by the nonviable fetus she would force her to carry. She's also no medical expert and has never examined Cox, so she has no basis to insist that the fetus is viable and that Cox would not be harmed.
When the co-hosts on "The View" pointed out this anti-abortion extremism applied to Cox's case, Nicholas Fondacaro objected in another Dec. 8 post:
Well, on Friday, co-host and pro-choice radical Sara Haines suggested that pro-lifers should stop receiving life-saving medical treatments because it was “God’s will” that they die, and that they were hypocrites for doing so.
Haines’s hate-filled attacks against pro-lifers came in response to the recent abortion court ruling in Texas. “Yeah, and this example should be one of the easy ones, because this actually also risked her future fertility and she wants to grow her family more and, of course, the baby is going to pass, all those things,” she said.
“[I]t's also not a universal truth when life begins,” she falsely proclaimed.
Despite being a mother herself, and her claims that she wanted to be a minister at one point in her life, Haines whined about people describing pregnancy as “a miracle” and “God’s will.”
Her swipes at pro-lifers grew more disturbing and dangerous as she declared that pro-lifers were hypocrites for receiving life-saving treatments for cancer and other ailments instead of just dying as part of “God’s will”:
[I]f it's God's will on the way in, it should be God's will on the way out too. That brings into question are you taking heart attack medication? Are you treating your cancer? Are you dying when you said you should? Because if we’re going to argue about life in, then let's be honest about life out. Don't go to the hospital if you're hurting because it is God's will. Like, I don't like the inconsistencies and the hypocrisy when people weaponize religion on this issue.
Receiving cancer treatment to extend one’s life is not going against God’s will. Butchering an unborn baby out of convenience was. If one received treatment and still passed away, that’s God’s will. Haines’s comments also betrayed her profound ignorance of the pro-life approach to end-of-life care and being opposed to medically assisted suicide, which is a closer analogy to abortion.
Fondacaro censored the fact that Cox's fetus was deemed by medical professionals to be non-viable, presumably so he could malicious ly smear Cox as being a bloodthirsty whore in "butchering an unborn baby out of convenience."
After the Texas Supreme Court blocked the judge's ruling, Cox went out of state to have an abortion. Mandelburg returned in a Dec. 11 post to smear and shame Cox for undergoing a necessary procedure:
Last week a judge in Texas ruled that a 31-year-old mother of three could dismember her innocent baby in the womb after finding out the baby had Trisomy 18. As of Monday, a Texas supreme court blocked the judges ruling and halted the murder.
Kate Cox learned at 20 weeks gestation that her baby had a fetal abnormality. Rather than giving her child a chance at life, as many children with trisomy 18 end up surviving, Cox sought an emergency abortion insisting that she didn’t want to take any risks by delivering her baby.
Cox, fearful of her chance to have more pregnancies in the future, pleaded for a judge to allow her to have a dilation and evacuation abortion where a provider will reach up, grab the baby girl’s arms and legs and pull them off, one by one. It would be a brutal, gruesome and painful death for the little baby girl.
Again, Mandelburg has never examined Cox, so she cannot possibly know anything about Cox's health and that of her fetus. She concluded by ranting that Cox was somehow being lied to by following normal medical advice:
Ultimately, the story of Kate Cox is heartbreaking. It’s heartbreaking that her baby was diagnosed with a medical struggle but it's also heartbreaking that she’s being fed lie after lie that’s convinced her that dismembering her baby is not only an option but a good option.
Prayers go out to Cox for clarity on truth and her innocent child for safety and sanctity.
The only liar we see here is Mandelburg. She doesn't want prayers for Cox -- she wants to shame and punish her for defying anti-abortion extremists like her and doing what was best for her health and not subjecting a fatally deformed fetus to more agony. She's mad that she couldn't inflict more state-mandated agony on her.
