Bread & circuses - political controversy over partial-birth abortions - Column

National Review, Sept 30, 1996 by Kate O'Beirne

THIS fall's most important congressional vote for the Dole campaign will take place in the third week of September when the House will try to override the President's veto of the bill banning partial-birth abortions. This debate will emphasize the gulf between a President who defends this method of late abortion, and the American public, which overwhelmingly opposes it. A Wirthlin poll taken a month after the veto found that when the procedure was described to respondents, 84 per cent supported the ban. Until then, however, 72 per cent had not known about the controversy at all. Bill Clinton's popularity rests on this ignorance. And it remains buoyant because the media gloss over the details of this gruesome procedure and swallow the outright phony medical arguments in its defense.

"A laboratory experiment in media bias," is how Doug Johnson, legislative director of National Right to Life, describes the battle. Johnson is experienced enough not to expect sympathetic treatment in the press. On this occasion, though, he thought the weight of evidence showing the procedure to be unnecessary and dangerous would force opponents to confront the reality of "choice": namely, risking a woman's life to kill a child in the process of being born. But even after hours of testimony by medical experts, floor debates with graphic diagrams, and press releases detailing uncontradicted medical evidence, Johnson complains that "more than half of our effort remains trying to get unfiltered coverage."

Even the media's favorite doctor, former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, has stated that partial-birth abortions are never medically necessary. "I believe that Mr. Clinton was misled by his medical advisors on what is fact and what is fiction in reference to late-term abortions," he explains in American Medical News. But his opinion has gone unnoticed by the media, even though it is shared by hundreds of doctors in the fields of obstetrics, gynecology, and perinatology who have formed the Physicians' Ad-hoc Coalition for Truth (PHACT).

Dr. Joseph DeCook, a founding member, declares: "It is a maverick medical procedure made up by maverick doctors for the purpose of delivering a dead fetus." Indeed, it is because the procedure poses serious risks to women that DeCook and his colleagues are so appalled at the President's justification. "Clinton has said this procedure is necessary to prevent 'ripping [the mother] to shreds' and to protect future fertility," states DeCook. "Both contentions are, of course, incorrect and probably merit the adjective absurd."

The PHACT doctors, who label partial-birth abortions "barbaric" and "a hideous travesty of medical care," have placed TV and print ads urging Congress to override the veto. Dr. Pamela Cook, Director of Medical Education in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Chicago, reports that her medical colleagues who support abortion rights "were horrified to learn that such a procedure was even legal."

But they are up against what Doug Johnson sees as the media's "tremendous will to believe certain things." When CBS's 60 Minutes did a story on these late-term abortions, not a single doctor opposed to the procedure appeared onscreen, even though members of PHACT had been interviewed. Following the President's veto in April, Johnson's office contacted the Washington Post's Ann Devroy to offer her background material on the controversy. She informed them she had no need of their information and filed a story asserting that the procedure was medically indicated in certain cases.

Significantly, the media rarely describe partial-birth abortion, which they primly call "a certain late-term procedure." They also routinely misinform the public by claiming it is used only to deal with severe fetal abnormalities or to prevent serious harm to women. One AP dispatch questioned whether the procedure even existed.

Despite such coverage, Congress has reportedly received some 6 million postcards generated by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. According to a chagrined Planned Parenthood memo, one House office received 9,000 postcards and 600 letters opposed to the President and only a single letter supporting him.

As Mary Kenny reports from Britain (page 23), decent people who have been anesthetized by high-minded rhetoric about abortion rights are repelled when confronted by what it means in practice. There was a similar story in Australia. When the Labor government refused to ban partial-birth abortions (widely publicized, incidentally, as being performed by Planned Parenthood's medical director), they became a major issue in February's election. The National - Liberal coalition, which had condemned them, won.

WILL the veto be overturned? In the House, pro-life lobbyists predict a close victory. In the Senate, Pat Moynihan opposes partial-birth abortion as "too close to infanticide," and there are signs that Arlen Specter and a few others might switch their votes. But the likelihood is that Mr. Clinton's veto will be upheld --unless pro-lifers can break through the media blackout.