THE PRESS IS FALLING FOR ANTI-ABORTION “FETAL HEARTBEAT” PROPAGANDA

Reporters are parroting — and spreading — sentimental falsehoods.

Judith Levine
May 27 2023

“ONCE A FETAL heartbeat could be detected, typically around the sixth week of pregnancy … ”

When I read this phrase in the New Yorker, referring to Texas’s first abortion ban, I shot off a letter to the editor. “This is misleading,” I wrote. “There is no heartbeat at six weeks because the fetus does not yet have a heart. As San Francisco OB-GYN Dr. Jennifer Kerns told NPR: ‘What we’re really detecting is a grouping of cells that are initiating some electrical activity. In no way is this detecting a functional cardiovascular system or a functional heart.’” I noted that “a six-week fetus is about the size and shape of a baked bean.”

Continued: https://theintercept.com/2023/05/27/abortion-fetal-heartbeat-propaganda-press-coverage/

How US dollars put anti-abortion groups at the heart of Romanian healthcare

Buoyed by evangelical zeal, a growing number of US-funded ‘pregnancy crisis centres’ threaten to return the country to the deadly days of Ceaușescu’s ban

Weronika Strzyżyńska and Diana Oncioiu in Romania
Fri 22 Jul 2022

It was the middle of summer, and the smell of ripening mirabelle plums filled the streets of Bucharest. Irina Mateescu was almost 18 and living with her grandparents. She had good grades, a boyfriend, and a late period which she was trying not think about.

“Eventually, I couldn’t ignore it any more. I saw a leaflet advertising free pregnancy tests. I didn’t have the money to buy one so I went to the address,” she recalls, 22 years later standing on the balcony of her new office.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/jul/22/how-us-dollars-put-anti-abortion-groups-at-the-heart-of-romanian-healthcare

‘Women are treated like walking incubators’: Malta’s fight for abortion

The island nation is the only country in the EU in which termination is still illegal under any circumstances, forcing women to have the procedure abroad or else risk prosecution. But women’s rights groups are pushing for change

by Rachel Cooke
Sun 19 Jun 2022

Elle doesn’t find it easy to talk about her
abortion, not because she regrets it – she would do the same again without any
hesitation – but because the memory of the terrible, almost overwhelming, fear
and isolation she experienced at the time still makes her feel so angry. “I’m
privileged,” she says, twisting the ring on her index finger. “I could afford
to travel. But what about those less fortunate than me? I know of a woman who
felt so desperate when she found out she was pregnant again, she put her three
children in front of some cartoons on the TV, and went straight upstairs to the
bathroom to begin launching herself from the toilet on to the floor in the hope
of inducing a miscarriage.” She’s fighting tears now. “That woman almost killed
herself. What about her? Does anyone want to hear her story?”

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/19/the-fight-for-abortion-in-malta

Roe v Wade: an anti-abortion film of staggering ineptitude

Rightwing faces, including Jon Voight, Stacey Dash and Tomi Lahren, join forces for a shoddy new drama purporting to tell the truth behind a major ruling

Robert Daniels
Thu 25 Mar 2021

Nick Loeb and Cathy Allyn believe you’ve been lied to about the landmark supreme court case Roe v Wade – a decision that protected a woman’s right to choose. In a controversial new movie named after the trial, the co-directors want to explain how decision was rigged; how a Jewish doctor (Loeb is of Jewish descent himself) leveraged abortion into a money making scheme; how the abortion rights advocate Lawrence Lader (Jamie Kennedy) concocted a plan to puppeteer two inexperienced female lawyers to prey on a supposedly desperate bumpkin in Norma McCorvey (Summer Joy Campbell) – the Roe in Roe v Wade – to weaponize her to an unsuspecting court system. And they want to spew this deeply biased anti-abortion malarkey as inartfully as possible.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/mar/24/roe-v-wade-anti-abortion-rightwing

25.03.2021

National Abortion Rights Action League

The Iconic Photo Hijacked By the Anti-Abortion Movement

The foetus is a powerful icon that the pro-choice movement has struggled to match.

By Amarens Eggeraat
14.12.20

If you look up the word abortion in a stock image bank, you’ll find roughly three types of photograph: sad women, protesters holding pro-choice signs or foetuses, usually near-fully developed, with a human face, closed eyes and sometimes even a tiny thumb in their mouth.

Besides being morally loaded, the visual
association between these tiny babies and abortion is also scientifically
incorrect, since the vast majority of procedures are carried before 13 weeks.
And yet, anti-abortion movements have used foetuses as a primary symbol since
the 1970s.

Continued: https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7vb9x/the-iconic-photo-hijacked-by-the-anti-abortion-movement

14.12.2020

Rosalind Pollack Petchesky

Pro-choice doctors call on ‘anti-abortion propaganda film’ to stop being shown in schools

Doctors for Choice argue that the film The Silent Scream is riddled with 'medical, scientific, and legal untruths'

9 November 2020
by Laura Calleja

Doctors for Choice have called for The Silent Scream, which they describe as an “anti-abortion propaganda film”, to stop being shown in schools.

The film was produced in the mid-1980s and is often shown in Maltese schools.

The NGO said the film continued to be used by pro-life groups to “dramatize abortion and portray it as an inhumane procedure that should be banned.”

Continued: https://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/105803/prochoice_doctors_call_on_antiabortion_propaganda_film_to_stop_being_shown_in_schools_#.X6nQbWhKhPY

09.11.2020

Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists

USA – Shock, Gore, and More: ‘Unplanned’ Recycles Timeworn Tropes of Anti-Choice Films

Shock, Gore, and More: ‘Unplanned’ Recycles Timeworn Tropes of Anti-Choice Films
Anti-abortion films spread misinformation and build a world that is distinctly white, Christian, and conservative.

Apr 5, 2019
Steph Herold & Gretchen Sisson

The anti-abortion film Unplanned quietly snuck into fourth place at the box office last weekend, grossing more than $6 million and drawing claims that it will be anti-abortion advocates’ Schindler’s List: “We are the hope, and this movie is our battle cry,” said one.

Unplanned is based on the memoir of Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood clinic director turned anti-abortion activist. Johnson claims she had a change of heart after witnessing an ultrasound-guided abortion and abruptly quit her job; others have consistently challenged Johnson’s account of events. Regardless, the movie takes Johnson’s conversion as true, holding her up as the relatable, redemptive heroine.

Continued: https://rewire.news/article/2019/04/05/shock-gore-and-more-unplanned/

This British overseas territory has some of the strictest abortion laws in Europe – welcome to Gibraltar

This British overseas territory has some of the strictest abortion laws in Europe - welcome to Gibraltar

Molly McElwee
20 August 2018

Last week, Argentina's senate blocked a bill to legalise abortion up to 14 weeks. In a year marked by progress for women's rights campaigners - including the Ireland referendum victory to repeal its outdated abortion laws - it has come as a huge setback.

Not even stories of 500,000 illegal abortions, leading to 100 unnecessary deaths every year - including one in the days since the bill was blocked - could break through the staunchly Catholic country's status quo.

Continued: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/british-overseas-territory-has-strictest-abortion-laws-europe/