A Matter of Trust.

Over the years the public's trust in the "media" has plummeted. Reporters in particular, and news people in general, are widely distrusted.

Why?

In his revealing book, Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News, Emmy Award-winner Bernard Goldberg looked at his colleagues and concluded that they "far too often ignored their primary mission: objective, disinterested reporting."

Nowhere is that more true than in the way the news business covers the abortion issue. The distrust that so many people have for the media's handling of abortion is because so much misinformation distributed by pro-abortion groups finds its way into the newsroom and presented as fact. Look no further than the coverage of the ban on partial-birth abortions. Recently, Pamela Brogan, a Gannett News Service reporter, repeated much of the litany of misinformation about partial-abortion and Roe v. Wade that had been discredited in excruciating detail years before. Brogan based her story in its entirety on the campaign of misinformation promoted by pro-abortion groups, which assert that the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act would "ban all abortions in the second trimester." In fact the language is very, very specific and limited to one abortion technique.

In addition to using this incorrect information about the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, Brogan also minimized the impact of Roe v. Wade. Referring to Roe, she wrote, "the decision... said abortion in the first trimester must be left to physicians. The court further said states could regulate or restrict abortions in later stages of pregnancy but must provide an exception for health of the mother."

It is, of course, a gross misconception to suggest that the "right to abortion" that the Supreme Court has enforced under Roe v. Wade is limited in some special way to "the first trimester." Indeed, it is a misconception that has been repeatedly refuted by the Supreme Court itself.

The casual reader would also conclude that there would need to be a serious risk to the mother's health to warrant an "abortion in later stages of pregnancy." But what does "health" mean?