As you well know, the media is swirling with the possible overturn of Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court. This, of course, has been made into a much bigger deal with the recent leak of a draft opinion authored by Justice Samuel Alito and confirmed by most of the other conservative justices.
In the days since its “release,” protests have popped up, even in front of some of those justices’ private homes, and not even the White House is condemning such acts. In addition, there is no small amount of chatter about the possible upcoming decision and the part the justices are playing in it on social media. Naturally, a lot of that from the political left is nothing but lies.
And some of them are so outlandish that not even liberal-backed outlets such as The Associated Press and their “fact-checkers” can let them stand.
The main one being debunked is about one of the Supreme Courts’ newest justices, the conservative Amy Coney Barrett.
According to the lie, Barrett believes that one major reason abortion should be outlawed is so that the “domestic supply of infants” in America can be maintained.
As you can see from the above tweets, Barrett is being painted in a rather cold and impersonal light by the left.
The only problem is that Barrett is not the one who used that phrase or even that line of thinking. In fact, it wasn’t a member of the court at all.
Instead, as you can see from the draft itself, it comes as a footnote on page 34 and is attributed to none other than the now controversial Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2008, the CDC wrote a report on the matter, noting that “nearly 1 million women were seeking to adopt children in 2002.” And yet, because of abortion, the “domestic supply of infants relinquished at birth or within the first month of life and available to be adopted had become virtually nonexistent.”
The Associated Press noted this as fact, saying that while some social media users were correctly attributing the quote, many were not. Their “fact check” explained that instead, they had “conflated” the report as being something akin to what Barrett had said before, during oral arguments in the current Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health case Alito’s draft was referring to.
During those arguments, Barrett is noted to have asked why “safe haven laws” could not be enough for women who don’t want to be a mother. These laws allow women to give up the rights to their child via adoption or foster care soon after birth with no questions asked.
Barrett’s thought was if a woman didn’t want to be a mother, why are these laws not enough? Why is abortion required for them?
Now, I understand that both Barrett’s question and the CDC report are discussing the possibility of a woman giving birth and then choosing not to raise that child as their own. However, while one is speaking of those children as more of a commodity to be traded, sold, and bought, Barrett’s questioning seems far more concerned with the child’s life and the joy they could bring to a family.
Of course, the AP doesn’t exactly distinguish these differences. Instead, as the piece is titled, “Posts misattribute CDC quote in Supreme Court draft on abortion,” it simply seems to infer that someone didn’t get the correct amount of credit. I mean, they didn’t even mention Barrett in the title, either.
However, I guess I have to say they did more than I expected for a leftist publication. After all, this is the same outlet that, during the Obama era, introduced the idea of “accountability journalism,” which basically says that something clearly opinionated and biased can be considered journalism if written by supposed news reporters.
We can only hope that they keep this honest streak up, even if it is rather vague and somewhat distorted. Just don’t hold your breath for too long…